The Lee women's lacrosse team suffered a program first in falling in two overtimes to Shorter University, 11-10 on Wednesday evening at the Lee Soccer Field.
McKinley Puckett scored the game-winner for the Hawks as she weaved through traffic and found the back of the net with 5:14 remaining in the second overtime. Lee has been playing lacrosse for three seasons now but had yet to go into extra time until tonight.
"This was a physical game with a lot of transition and in overtime I didn't think we had our legs. We won some of the draw controls but we didn't capatilize on our possessions and Shorter got in and scored on us," said Lee head coach Derrel Martin.
The Lady Flames overcame a four-goal second half deficit. Emma Hill caught fire and scored three consecutive goals from 14:08-7:35. Becca Broadwick tied things up at 9-9 with 4:36 to cap off the rally.
Shorter's Alexis Mount answered to give her team a brief, 10-9 lead with 1:53 left before Lee freshman and captain Shayna Ryan sent the match to overtime with a free position goal with just 1:10 remaining in regulation.
Hill led the Lady Flames with six goals. Becca Broadwick followed with three and Ryan had one. Ryan had two assists while Brodadwick, Hill and Lord each added one.
Puckett fittingly scored the decisive goal for the Hawks as she finished with a game-high eight scores. Allie Perry, Mount and Skiles added one goal each. Perry also had a pair of assists.
Abby Sanders, a senior and member of the Lady Flames from its inception in 2017, had six saves in goal. Sydney Jones recorded 11 saves for the Hawks.
Lee held the advantage in shots by a 31-19 margin. The two clubs were nearly even in draw controls with the Lady Flames holding a slight edge at 13-12.
The first half was a back and forth affair with Lee scoring three straight to start things off over the first seven minutes of the contest before the Hawks found their footing and knotted things up at 5-5 at the intermission.
The loss drops the Lady Flames to 4-10 overall and 1-5 in the GSC. The win propels Shorter to 5-8 and 2-5 in league play and gives them an inside track to a GSC Playoff berth.
Lee will close out the regular season against the two top clubs in the GSC. On Saturday the Lady Flames visit Alabama Huntsville for a 2 p.m. first draw. The season closes at Young Harris next Wednesday at 4 p.m.
Prior to the game the Lady Flames honored their three seniors in a special ceremony. Sanders was joined by senior transfers Rachael Giles and Kara Veldman.
"All three of our seniors bring something different to the team. Kara has just picked up the game in the fall and is a good athlete and brings a good effort for us. Rachael Giles was a transfer and took a chance on us transferring in her senior season she was a producer for us and handled the ball on the low attack and brought great leadership to our team. And then Abby Sanders was a founding member of the lacrosse program and she has been in goal for us this year and just picked up the game in college but did a wonderful job for us," concluded Martin.
Â
