Box Score ROCKVILLE CENTRE, N.Y. (Mar. 4, 2016) - Junior midfielder
Cooper Sesselman (Lindenhurst, N.Y.) scored five goals in the second half as the Molloy College women's lacrosse team came from behind in the final 30 minutes of play to down the Yellow Jackets of American International College by a score of 13-11 on Friday (Mar. 4) at John A. Darcy Field.
Molloy (2-1) fell behind early as AIC (2-1) scored three goals in a four-minute span with markers coming from juniors Jessica Fontana (Westerly, R.I.), Stefanie Dufresne (Belchertown, Mass.) and Riley Brennan (Wilbraham, Mass.). But lacrosse is a game of rallies, as the Lions proved by scoring three straight goals of their own to knot the score up at three-all with under 15 minutes to go in the first half. First, graduate attacker
Meghan Orlando (Hicksville, N.Y.) netted a free-position tally with 17:53 remaining, then it was a goal from junior attack
Alexa Watson (North Massapequa, N.Y.) that brought the Lions within a goal before Sesselman struck for her first of the game to even the score. AIC refused to go away, scoring two goals in a 70-second span as Brennan and Mikayla Demanche (Rochester, Mass.) tickled twine to put the Yellow Jackets back ahead by a 5-3 margin. Late in the half, Molloy struck for consecutive markers from the Levittown connection of freshman
Brianna Wilson and senior
Kim Pepe; AIC set a furious pace to end the stanza, though, taking a 6-5 lead with two-tenths of a second on the clock as Mary Bates (East Longmeadow, Mass.) scored on a third-chance effort to end the half.
The game bounced back and forth from there as Sesselman scored two goals while Watson added a marker after Whitney McKay (Painted Post, N.Y.) had scored a goal on a 7-on-6 advantage. With the game tied at eight-all, the Lindenhurst junior took control and scored the next two goals to edge her side ahead with a 10-8 margin midway through the final act of regulation. The Yellow Jackets stung back as Dufresne scored two straight, but Orlando put and Sesselman put an end to the rally as Molloy held serve for the final three-and-a-half minutes to claim the victory.
Sesselman's big offensive output was helped along by a three-assist day from sophomore attacker
Jessica Markowitz (Baldwin, N.Y.) as well as Orlando's four-point day (2G, 2A). Wilson scored two goals while adding three caused turnovers and three ground balls, and senior defender
Chelsea Bauer (Hicksville, N.Y.) led the team with three draw control wins. Red-shirt junior goalie
Caroline Winters (Baldwin, N.Y.) made an impressive 19 saves in cage to pick up her second win of the season. For AIC, Dufresne had six points with four goals and two assists while Brennan had a pair of markers and a helper in the loss. Junior keeper Alexis Torosian (Hopkinton, Mass.) had 12 saves for the Yellow Jackets.
The maroon and white will host its second straight game and play its third game in four days on Sunday (Mar. 6) when the Lions welcome the Assumption College Greyhounds to Rockville Centre in what has become an annual meeting between the two schools. The opening draw is set for 12 p.m.
