Women's Lacrosse defeats Johnson & Wales on Friday to earn Win in Final 2018 Contest
IRVING, Texas – The University of Dallas women's lacrosse team won its final contest of the season, 19-7, on Friday evening. Lexi Leite (Houston, Texas) and Erika Keever (Fort Worth, Texas) led the offense with six goals apiece, as the Crusaders (1-9) tallied a season-high in the scoring column. Leite's total was one shy of a personal-best, while Keever claimed her highest scoring output of her career.
Emily Pauletti (Dallas, Texas) put UD on top 1-0 17 seconds into the contest. It remained there for over eight minutes until Keever fired her first goal of the day on an assist by Sarah Gamble (Allen, Texas).
Ashley Guerrero answered with the Wildcats (0-12) first goal a minute later to get the guests in the scoring column.
After the teams exchanged goals, Dallas erupted for six goals the final 16 minutes of the first half to boast a 9-2 advantage. That scoring total surpassed the team's overall best total in a game this year.
Leite and Keever claimed four goals apiece in the opening stanza, with three each occurring during that six-goal stretch. The top-two scoring tandem notched their fourth and third season hat tricks, respectively. It was 18th of Leite's career.
Christiane Flynn (Seattle, Wash.) and Leite extended the lead in the early minutes of the second half.
Johnson & Wales battled to keep the deficit under double-digits, but Keever went back-to-back on scores that frame at 20:25 and 20:08 to push the edge to 15-5. Her second goal was assisted by Alex Parkey (Henrietta, Texas).
Katie Smith made a successful free position shot at 17:20 to reduce the gap to nine, but Ella Pedrozo (Austin, Texas) dialed in her first collegiate goals consecutively to make it a running clock the last 16 minutes of regulation. The first goal was on the team's lone made free position attempt.
Parkey and Lisa Archuleta (Modesto, Calif.) also etched their first goals of the season.
Leite and Keever matched game-highs in shots (12) and combined for 19 shots on cage. The Crusaders garnered a season-best 51 shots with 41 on target.
Madison Herbert garnered 22 saves and 11 groundballs in 60 minutes for JWU. Smith and Guerrero both had a team-high three goals.
Leite achieved her 100th career goal with 3:50 minutes remaining in the match. The junior is just the third player in the program to surpass the century mark. She also gave an assist this match to finish her total on the year at six, which ties her with Gwen Mohler for second in the records (19). Leite reached 100 points earlier this campaign, and will cap her third year with the third highest amount (119).
Keever improved to sixth overall in the Crusaders scoring books with 51 in her career.
SOCIAL MEDIA
Final | #UDCrusaders WIN! Leite and Keever scored 6 times each to lead team to Friday's victory! | @UDallasWLAX #GoUD #UDWLAX pic.twitter.com/BErduZ4Cmr
— UDallas Athletics (@UDallasSports) April 21, 2018
FINCH RECOGNIZED
Prior to today's match, Avery Finch (Jamul, Calif.) was recognized for Senior Day. She is a graduate student pursuing her Master of Arts in Education. Finch lettered four years with the UD softball program. She netted three goals and two assists in her first year playing lacrosse.
