A difficult season for the Saint Mary’s lacrosse team reached its end on Saturday, as Hope sent the Belles back home with a 21-6 loss. With the result, Saint Mary’s ended the season on an 11-game winless streak, having recorded just one victory on Feb. 28. The Belles also went without a win in MIAA play, going 0-7 against league opponents.
Unlike a few of the Belles’ contests earlier in April, the Hope game was never really close. The Flying Dutchmen scored five straight goals after the opening draw, as Elena Salazar struck twice on her way to a four-goal performance. The Belles briefly pushed back, though, scoring two of the first quarter’s final three goals. Freshman midfielder Kathryn Kalinowski made it 5-1 on a free position shot before junior midfielder Valentina Rubio tallied a second goal with 55 seconds to play.
The second quarter unfolded as Hope’s most dominant of the game. The Flying Dutchmen controlled all 12 draws in the quarter, battering the Belles with 15 shots. Saint Mary’s kept the score respectively close at 10-3 midway through the quarter, but Hope made its move in the final six minutes before halftime. Molly Frederickson, who deposited a game-high five goals, scored three in merely a 30-second stretch. Salazar and Bella Lafranca would add two more later on, bringing the halftime score to 15-4 thanks to a 5-0 Hope scoring run.
Hope played nearly unflappable defense against sophomore attacker Alyssa Grant and senior attacker Reese Bauer, two of the Belles’ top offensive players. But Bauer broke through coming out of halftime, scoring the only Saint Mary’s goal in a third quarter that featured three total tallies. As the third quarter wrapped up with Hope ahead 17-5, Grant had no points to her name. She would remain in that drought all the way through the final whistle.
With the game well in hand, Hope added on in the fourth quarter, outscoring Saint Mary’s by a 4-1 margin. Junior attacker Christiana Singler found the only Belle goal on an assist from Bauer, closing the book on the Saint Mary’s offense with 5 minutes and 44 seconds remaining.
Despite her scoreless finale on Saturday, Grant finished as the Belles’ top goal-scorer for the 2024 season. She buried 27 tallies, finishing seven goals ahead of Rubio’s total. In the points department, Bauer ended the season closest to Grant’s 38 with 27.
Elsewhere on the stat sheet, Kalinowski concluded with more ground balls (34) than anyone else on the team. Rubio paced the squad with 23 caused turnovers, while Singler led the way with 43 draw controls and eight free position goals. In the cage, junior goalie Emma Zmudzinski finished with a 17.82 goals against average and .349 save percentage.
