Temple University lacrosse secured the No. 3 seed in the American Athletic Conference tournament.
The Owls (6-10, 3-2, American Athletic Conference) defeated Vanderbilt University, 11-6, in its final game of the season against on Saturday in Nashville, Tennessee to finish third place in the conference.
Junior goalkeeper Maryn Lowell was effective in the cage, making a season-high 15 saves against Vanderbilt’s 26 shots. Lowell recorded nine saves in the second half to close out Temple’s victory.
“We played solid man-to-man defense, and then Maryn was making saves, which was wonderful,” coach Bonnie Rosen said. “Two years ago she had a career-high 17 saves that day [at Vanderbilt], so this place obviously has a really big positive memory bank for her here. She really did a really nice job today.”
Neither team scored a goal in the first 10 minutes of play because of both their strong defenses, Rosen said. Then, junior attacker Olivia Thompson started the scoring with a free-position shot with 19 minutes, 46 seconds left in the first half.
“For us offensively, we were finding some openings in their zone, but not the right ones,” Rosen said. “So we were getting collapsed on and then turning the ball over, and then defensively we were coming up with big stops.”
“I’m really proud that we were able to keep our calm and stay in it and eventually dig out the first goal,” Rosen added.
Temple scored four goals in the final 6:31 of the first half to take a 7-2 lead into halftime. Sophomore midfielder Jen Rodzewich had a hat trick in the first half, the third of her career. Rodzewich added two assists for five points in the game.
“[Rodzewich] is one of our more creative players,” Rosen said. “She really got our offense out of being so robotic and got them playing freely. So I would give a lot of the credit to the momentum going to Jen.”
Thompson, junior attacker Maddie Gebert and junior midfielder Julia Ryan each recorded two goals. Gerbert ended the regular season with a team-leading 35 goals and 39 points. Thompson finished second behind Gebert with 29 goals.
Temple will play the conference tournament host and No. 2 seed Cincinnati in the first round on May 2 following the other matchup between No. 1 seed the University of Florida (11-6, 5-0 The American) and Vanderbilt.
The Owls suffered a 12-9 road loss against Cincinnati (11-6, 4-1 The American) on April 13.
Be the first to comment