With 12 seconds left to play in the Owls’ home opener, graduate attacker Brenda McDermott scored the go-ahead goal for Temple (2-0) in its 18-16 win against Monmouth University on Wednesday at Howarth Field.
McDermott, who was named the Big East attacker of the week, finished the game with one goal and six assists, including the assist to senior attacker Brooke Williams with 1:38 left to play to tie the game.
“It was simply stunning,” coach Bonnie Rosen said. “It’s just thrilling to see how we find a way at the end of the game in a very poised manner to finish games.”
It was Temple’s first time in program history facing Monmouth.
The Hawks didn’t waste any time on offense and scored the first goal of the game with 29:26 left to play.
Sophomore midfielder Amber Lambeth and the Owls responded and tied the game two minutes later. That back-and-forth play would continue for the rest of the game.
Lambeth scored four goals for the second time this season. Senior attacker Carly Demato, junior attacker Nicole Barretta and senior attacker Anna Frederick all had hat tricks for the Owls. Monmouth senior attacker Olivia Higson led all scorers with six goals.
“Wins away are awesome,” Lambeth said. “But opening the season with a win and just going out hard and being able to beat a really good team and battle our way back, it’s just awesome.”
Temple held its largest lead of the game when the Owls went on a 3-0 run with 17:18 left in the first half. Monmouth responded with a 3-0 run of its own 12 minutes later to take an 8-7 lead.
The score was tied 9-9 going into halftime. The Owls scored first in the second half to take a 10-9 lead. The Hawks responded with a 4-0 run and took a 13-10 with 21:18 to go.
Monmouth kept its three-goal lead until 4:36 left to play when Lambeth scored her fourth goal on a free position shot. Lambeth’s goal was the start of Temple’s 5-0 run that would end up winning the game.
After Lambeth’s goal, McDermott got the ball to Frederick to get the Owls within one. One minute and 14 seconds later, McDermott got the ball to Williams to tie the game.
McDermott then scored herself to get the lead for the Owls.
“When Brenda had the ball we all knew she had it,” Demato said. “And if she didn’t have it we had a million other options, so I was nervous but confident.”
Frederick sealed the win for the Owls when she scored with three seconds left and recorded her first career hat trick.
The Owls’ last five goals all came within four minutes of each other. The quick scoringt was missing in the first half, when Monmouth held them scoreless for seven minutes.
“Early on we are trying to diagnose the defense and find a way to score and a lot of our players are trying to find when they can go to goal and how they can score,” Rosen said. “We are more patient than we are impatient which works the clock, obviously down the stretch when the score and time says you got to start scoring some goals, you start to do that.”
Freshman goalkeeper Maryn Lowell picked up her first career win as an Owl. She played 47:18 gave up 13 goals and had six saves.
“Goalkeeping is really difficult in lacrosse,” Rosen said. “I have full confidence as the season goes on our defense will become the piece that allows us to fully solidify our team, right now we are allowing them to learn a little bit.”
This was the second straight game for the Owls that came down to the last minute. In their season opener against Rutgers University the score was tied with four minutes left to play. Rosen isn’t as much worried about her team’s ability to find a way to win as she is about them continuing to work to get better.
“We are still figuring out what our team’s unique abilities are and how to play on them,” Rosen said. “We will get back to work tomorrow and work on getting better. Practices are about getting better and better and growing our games from there and come game day we just find a way which seems to be our hashtag right now.”
Temple will be back in action on Saturday at Princeton University.
Tessa Sayers can be reached at teresa.sayers@temple.edu. Follow The Temple News on Twitter @TheTempleNews and @TTN_Sports.
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