LOWELL, Mass. – Senior goalkeeper
Renee Gonzalez (Long Valley, N.J.) had a career-high, program-record 19 saves against New Hampshire (8-3, 3-0 AE), but the UMass Lowell women's lacrosse team (3-9, 0-3 AE) lost to the Wildcats, 11-4, on Wednesday afternoon at Wicked Blue Field.
"New Hampshire is always a team that's a bitter rival for us," said Head Coach
Carissa Medeiros. "We've never quite matched up the way that I would like to against them. They're really, really smart, very well-coached, huge lacrosse IQ…they made it extremely hard for us to get looks onto cage."
The River Hawks jumped out to a strong start, scoring less than a minute into the game with a goal from
Kristina Keith (East Kingston, N.H.), assisted by
Cameron McKelvin (Westminster, Md.).
The Wildcats rattled off four-straight goals, though, including a hat trick from Mickenzie Larivee early on.
Paige MacEachern (Lynnfield, Mass.) and
Kendyl Finelli (Southborough, Mass.) responded with goals of their own, assisted by Keith and
Olivia Massena (Cicero, N.Y.), respectively, but New Hampshire went on another run to close out the first half with three goals. The River Hawks trailed 7-3 at the half.
Neither team scored in the first nine minutes of the second half, but New Hampshire's Devan Miller notched a goal at 20:40, her fourth goal of the game.
The River Hawks would score one more goal in the matchup—a free position goal by
Samantha Blair (West Islip, N.Y.)—but they couldn't overcome the deficit, and the game ended in an 11-4 loss for the home team.
Gonzalez made her 19
th save with 1:21 left, breaking the previous program record of 18 saves in a game, held by
Courtney Barrett.
"Renee played like an All-American today," Medeiros said. "Not only did she make point-blank saves—she made all of the saves that she should make, and she made more."
Hana Caster (North Attleboro, Mass.) led both sides in ground balls with four, but the Wildcats edged out the River Hawks in the ground ball battle, 21-15.
Next up for UMass Lowell is a road matchup at Binghamton on Saturday, April 6 at 1 p.m.
