Late surge falls short for women's lacrosse in CAA opener

The Hofstra women’s lacrosse team was unable to overcome two big runs by the Elon University Phoenix in a 12-8 loss on Friday afternoon at James M. Shuart Stadium in their Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) opener. Hofstra now holds a 6-5 (0-1 CAA) record while Elon improves to 2-8 (1-0 CAA).  

Alyssa Parrella, Drew Shapiro, Carlee Ancona and Alexa Mattera each picked up two goals in the loss. 

Parrella finished with three points on the night as she added an assist. 

“It was nice to have different scorers,” said Hofstra head coach Shannon Smith. “But we needed them to either score more goals or other players to score goals. We definitely have to be better.”

There were only three total goals scored in the first 20 minutes of play, much of which could be attributed to strong defense and excellent goaltending, but also some missed opportunities.

“We weren’t finishing our shots, we had a lot of turnovers and we missed some ground balls on the draw control, so we have to do better in those areas,” Smith said.

There was an offensive explosion by Elon in the final 10 minutes of the first half. 

The Phoenix went on a 5-1 run to close out the opening half. 

The run sent the teams to the locker room with Elon leading 6-3. 

“We had a little bit of a mental breakdown in the first half,” Smith said. 

“We had a breakdown defensively and that’s something we have to clean up.”

Elon began the scoring in the second half after about five minutes of play, giving them a four-goal lead. 

Parrella and Mattera scored back-to-back goals to cut Elon’s lead in half, but the Phoenix answered about 30 seconds later to extend their lead once again. 

Parrella scored again one minute later and Ancona followed suit.

The score was 8-7 in favor of Elon and Hofstra had the momentum, but the Phoenix put together a 3-0 run in the next eight minutes of play to put an end to any thought of a comeback.

Elon dominated the draw control battle as they won 13 compared to Hofstra’s nine and Hofstra turned the ball over 15 times compared to Elon’s nine turnovers.

Hofstra then traveled down to Virginia to take on the College of William & Mary Tribe on Sunday, April 8.