Six Freshmen Notch First Collegiate Points In Season Opener Against Neumann

BALTIMORE, Md. – Fourteen days ago Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow which signified an early spring. Spring arrived at Goucher College on Saturday with the women's lacrosse season opener against Neumann University. The Knights defeated the Gophers for the second-straight season opener.

Shannon Stull (Westminster, Md./Francis Scott Key) paced Goucher with two goals and an assist while Camryn Agostino (South Setauket, N.Y./Ward Melville) posted two tallies and Alyssa Long (Pennsburg, Pa./Upper Perkiomen) also found the twine in the game.

Stull registered her 18 career multi-goal performance and now has 66 goals and two assists for 68 points in her three years. Agostino and Long are part of the squad's Top-5 scorers from last season. Long ranked third on the team in. 2018 with 14 goals and six assists for 20 points while Agostino was fifth with 10 markers and one assist for 11 points.

It's a new era for the program with freshmen Julia Gazzola (Hagerstown, Md./North Hagerstown) (1 goal, 2 assists), Alex DiGiovanni (York, Pa./Dover) (1 goal), Emily Flinn (Ashland, Va./Patrick Henry) (1 goal), Mackenzie Nase (Weare, N.H./John Stark Regional) (1 goal), Elizabeth Green (Easton, Pa. / Lehigh Valley Charters for the Arts) (1 goal) and Delany Comerford (Garden City, N.Y./Garden City) (1 assist) all registered their first collegiate points in the match.

Neumann scored the first four goals of the match before Green put the Gophers on the scoreboard with an unassisted tally with 17:37 left in the first half. Gazzola and Flinn punched in their first collegiate goal unassisted at 6:55 and 6:18 left in the stanza, but the Knights went into the the break with a 9-5 lead.

The combination of Gazzola to Stull for consecutive tallies trimmed the margin to 10-5 with 25:48 left in the match. Agostino and DiGiovanni went back-to-back to cut the score to five goals again with 20 minutes remaining.

Nase (16:39), Long from Stull (10:16) and Agostino from Comerford (1:12) would help Goucher reach double figures in goals for the game, but the Knights closed the game on a 10-3 run to earn the 21-10 victory.

Long also stuffed the stat sheet with six draw controls, two ground balls and two caused turnovers. Gazzola added four draw controls, two ground balls and a caused turnover while Soleil Gagne (Portsmouth, N.H./Portsmouth) registered four draw controls and a caused turnover. Comerford registered three ground balls and two caused turnovers while Brittany Ransom (Centreville, Md./St. Peter's and Paul) added two ground balls and two caused turnovers.

Gillian Sickler (Alexandria, Va./West Potomac) made seven saves.

Goucher returns to action one week from today at Cedar Crest. Game time is 1 p.m.