The No. 5
Florida lacrosse team closed out the home season in style, cruising to a 17-5
conference victory over No. 17 Vanderbilt. Brittany Dashiell (Bel Air, Md,) scored a career-high-tying six
points to lead the Gators to their 10th-straight victory, running Florida’s
record to 14-2 (4-0 ALC) with one game to go in the regular season. With the
loss, the Commodores drop to 7-6 overall and finish their conference slate with
a 1-4 record in ALC play.
“Offensively,
I thought they ran through their plays,” said Head Coach Amanda O’Leary. “I think Vanderbilt is a really good defensive
team, and offensively we did a nice job of containing them.”
Brittany
Dashiell led both teams with six points on the afternoon, scoring two goals and
tying the school record with four assists. Kitty Cullen (Rockville, Md.) was tops on the Gators with five
goals, and Shannon Gilroy
(Northport, N.Y.) followed closely with four.
“Kitty has a
rocket for a shot,” Gilroy said of her teammate. “Every time she shoots the
ball in practice, everyone steps out of the way. I know the goalies do, too.
She has a really nice shot.”
Caroline
Chesterman (South Nyack, N.Y.) recorded
three goals, Ashley Bruns
(Ellicott City, Md.) put up two goals and an assist, and reigning National
Rookie of the Week Nora Barry
(Marcellus, N.Y.) scored the remaining goal and assist, adding a team-high five
draw controls, three ground balls and two caused turnovers.
Before the
game, Coach O’Leary stressed the importance of winning the battle for
possession, which the Gators excelled at this afternoon, leading 15-9 in draw
controls and 31-13 in shots.
“Shannon did
a really nice job (taking the draw),” O’Leary said. “Ally Carey is one of the
best draw specialists in the country, if not the best, and I thought Shannon
certainly held her own. I thought
both of them did a fantastic job on the draw.”
Emily
Dohony (Parkton, Md.) and Mikey
Meagher (Liverpool, N.Y.) each recorded
three ground balls on defense, and Dohony also caused two turnovers.
Meagher made
seven saves and allowed just five goals in the complete game, while Commodore
keeper Natalie Wills put up nine saves but gave up all 17 scores.
Senior
midfielder Ally Carey, a 2011 First-Team All-ALC selection, led the Commodores
with two goals, four draw controls and two caused turnovers.
Kitty Cullen
got the scoring started two and a half minutes in, taking the ball across the
midfield and driving into the arc for an unassisted goal. Carly Linthicum
bounced a shot past Meagher 59 seconds later, but the Gators followed with an
8-0 run to head into the half leading 9-1.
Ally Carey
scored her first goal of the afternoon for the Commodores with 28:55 to play in
the second half, but Dashiell notched the first of her two goals at 26:57, and
a wraparound diving goal from Chesterman made it 10-2 in favor of the Gators.
The
Commodores continued to fight, scoring three of the next four goals over a
stretch of three and a half minutes, but they were unable to complete the
comeback, as Florida closed out the second half on a 5-goal run for a final
score of 17-5. The 12-goal gap marks the highest scoring margin for the Gators
against an ALC opponent, topping their 14-3 defeat of Johns Hopkins in the 2010
ALC Tournament.
