Drexel’s magical season continues on following a 15-14 comeback victory in overtime against Towson in the Colonial Athletic Association women’s lacrosse semifinals on Friday evening in Harrisonburg, Va. Senior attacker Courtney Dietzel scored off a free-position attempt on the opening possession of overtime to give the Dragons (13-1) the victory.
Drexel will meet host James Madison for the CAA championship on Sunday. Drexel is playing in the CAA final for the first time in program history while the Dukes, who cruised past Hofstra 14-7, are playing in the championship game for the seventh straight time and have won the last three CAA titles.
Drexel, which beat Towson by double digits twice in the last month, found much tougher going on Friday and trailed by three goals with under 10 minutes to play. But then Drexel ripped off three goals in a span of just 60 seconds — Colleen Grady (7:46), Jamie Schneidereith (7:06) and Karson Harris (6:46) — to tie the game 14-14.
Both goalies came up big down the stretch, with Drexel’s Zoe Bennett and Towson’s Carly Merlo each making a pair of saves in the closing minutes as the game moved on to overtime.
A green card called on Towson to start overtime gave Drexel the ball with no draw control. The Dragons worked the ball to a wide open Dietzel to the left of the goal. She was fouled on her initial attempt and then cut to the middle on the free position attempt and came through with the game-winner.
Courtney Dietzel sends @DrexelWLax to the CAA Championship! 15-14 in OT! pic.twitter.com/16A0pKOE6B
— Colonial Athletic Association (@CAASports) May 7, 2021
Harris led the Dragons with five points on three goals and two assists and had eight draw controls to help Drexel to a 20-11 advantage on draws. Corinne Bendarik, Jamie Schneidereith and Lucy Schneidereith each added hat tricks while Bennett made seven saves.
Towson’s Blaire Pearre led the Tigers (9-8) with five goals, but she missed the end of regulation and overtime after colliding with a teammate going for a loose ball in the middle of the field and injuring her knee. Nikki Sliwak had five points (1g, 4a) and Lindsey Marshall and Kerri Thornton each scored three times. Merlo made a career-high 13 saves for the Tigers.
In the second semifinal, JMU goalie Molly Dougherty turned in a dominant performance, making 13 saves as the Dukes (10-4) avenged a 13-7 loss to Hofstra from earlier in the season.
Isabella Peterson had a first-half hat trick for JMU, her third goal coming with 1:06 left in the half to give the Duke a 7-4 halftime lead.
Led by a strong defense and Dougherty in the cage, the Dukes held Hofstra scoreless for the first 15 minutes of the second half and added four more goals to take full control of the game.
Peterson, Charlotte Haggerty and Kacey Knobloch all scored three goals for the Dukes, who won 16 of 23 draws, led by Lizzy Fox with seven and Rachel Matey with five.
Katie Whalen scored four goals for Hofstra (6-6) and Alyssa Parrella had a goal and four assists. Jess Smith made nine saves for the Pride.