This past Saturday, on a gorgeous after-noon in Hamilton, N.Y., the Colgate wom-en’s lacrosse team defeated Holy Cross by a single goal to pull off an impressive 12-11 win over the Crusaders.

Junior midfielder Amanda O’Sullivan earned the Patriot League Player of the Week title after tallying a whopping nine points on four goals and five assists. Senior captain and attacker Ka-tie Sullivan also had an outstanding game with three goals, followed by midfielders, junior at-tacker Quincey Spagnoletti and senior captain Courtney Miller who each posted two goals on the scoreboard. First-year goalie Jennie Berglin played another amazing game with a total of eleven stops to earn her second career win.

Holy Cross, 1-1 in the Patriot League, was led by rookie Lauren Ryan who used her speed and agility to put five goals in the back of the goal. Maddie Carrellas made a solid effort for her team with two goals of her own.

The two teams started off the game in a back-and-forth trade-off of goals for the first nine minutes of play. Sullivan put two goals on the board for the Raiders, while Ryan and Sara Hennesey tallied points for the oppos-ing team. Holy Cross then climbed to a 9-4 lead in the remaining time left in the half. The Crusaders posted seven of the final nine goals, while Spagnoletti and Miller were responsible for Colgate’s two points.

The Raider women seriously upped their game in the second half, outscoring Holy Cross 8-2. O’Sullivan put back-to-back goals on the board. The Crusaders swiftly answered back with two consecutive goals from players Ryan and DiBari to bring the score to 11-6. These were the Crusaders final two goals of the game.

The Colgate women finished the game with an astounding 6-0 run in the remaining 22 minutes of play. Spagnoletti dodged past two defenders in an individual effort to cut Colgate’s deficit to 11-7. O’Sullivan posted her third goal of the day with 19:28 left in the half. First-year midfielder Megan Ark made a solid shot to slice the lead to 11-9 with just over twelve minutes left to play.

Holy Cross began to stall the Raiders’ offense in hopes of scraping by with a win. However, af-ter Berglin made a save off a Holy Cross player’s shot, possession changed over to Colgate. Mill-er put a solid second goal in the back of the net to cut the lead to a single goal. This was Miller’s 29th goal of the year.

Sullivan tied the game with 4:51 remaining of play off a fantastic behind-the-back shot. Ju-nior attacker Kate Sheridan found Sullivan who cut into the middle of the 12-meter on a 3-2 fast break for the Raiders. Sullivan caught the pass and nailed the shot to knot the score. Colgate maintained possession on a clutch draw, be-fore Head Coach Heather Young decided to call a timeout.

Miller held the ball at the wing, dodged to-ward the middle of the field and tossed the ball off to O’Sullivan who used her teammates pick to screen off into an open alley toward the net. O’Sullivan fired a shot past the Crusader goal to clinch the win with a mere 11 seconds left of play.

Holy Cross did have one final opportunity in the last several seconds of play, but with a shot just wide of the net, the Raiders improved to 2-1 in the Patriot League with an exciting and well-deserved 12-11 win on Tyler’s Field.

The Colgate women’s lacrosse team will be back out on Tyler’s Field on Saturday, March 31 at 1 p.m. for a non-conference match-up against the Yale Bulldogs.

Contact Allie Silverman at [email protected].