The Golden Griffins women's lacrosse team defeated Battle of the Bridge rival Niagara 16-8 on Wednesday, as the Blue and Gold hosted it's MAAC foe on senior night at the Demske Sports Complex.
The victory for Canisius was the team's ninth in a row and seventh in conference play, improving the Griffs to a 10-5 overall record and a perfect 7-0 mark in conference. The loss drops the Purple Eagles to 5-10 on the season and 2-4 in MAAC play.
Canisius was led by three of it's seniors tonight, as Tori Quinn scored two goals and totaled seven assists to lead the team, Meghan Cuddy scored a team and game-high four goals and Kayla Scully recorded eight saves en route to her fifth victory of the season.
"I'm very proud of how our team came out tonight and performed against our school rival," said head coach Scott Teeter. "It was a good team win for us and it was our senior leadership on senior day that really got the job done for us overall. Scully made some clutch saves in goal to keep Niagara from cutting into our lead and Quinn and Cuddy made numerous plays to help lead us to victory. Overall it was a great 60-minute effort from our whole team."
The Griffs started the game out strong, taking an 8-0 lead over Niagara in the first 15 minutes of action. Freshman Erica Evans (2 goals, 2 assists) started the scoring out for Canisius, but it would be a trio of seniors, Tori Greco (2 goals), Cuddy (4 goals) and Whitley Perry (3 goals), who increased the team's lead.
The Purple Eagles finally got on the board with 14:14 left in the first half as Taylor Wolf scored her 24th goal of the season to make the score 8-1. Niagara would score two more goals to cut the Griffs lead down to 8-3, but Cuddy would add one more goal for the Griffs at the 2:05 mark to put Canisius up 9-3. Niagara scored one more goal before the half and Canisius would go to the locker room with a 9-4 lead.
Canisius came out strong in the second half as Evans and Quinn scored the first two goals of the second half putting the home-team up 11-4 with 24:46 left in regulation. Over the next 11 minutes of action, the Griffs and Purple Eagles traded goals but with 12:31 on the clock, Canisius went on a hot-streak to put the visiting squad away for good.
The Griffs scored four goals from the 12:30 mark to the 3:36 mark in the second half to go up 16-6 and ultimately seal the victory on senior night. Niagara added two more goals to finish the game and leave the final score at 16-8.
As a team the Griffs were 20-21 on clears, led Niagara 15-11 in draw controls, 9-7 in saves, 31-26 in shots and were 3-5 on free-position shots compared to the Purple Eagles 1-2.
After tonight's victory, Canisius' next game will be this Saturday, April 18 when the team travels to West Long Branch, N.J. to take on Monmouth.
Game Notes: Senior Tori Quinn's seven assists in the game were one shy off of her sister's school record of eight in a game and was also a career-high for the attacker... Meghan Cuddy's four goals in the game matched a career-high for the midfielder...W hitley Perry's three goals in the game were her first three goals of the season... The game on Wednesday was the final home regular-season game for eight members of the Canisius women's lacrosse team (Quinn, Cuddy, Scully, Greco, Perry, Casey DePauw, Natalie Wagaman and manager Joe Rutigliano)... Head coach Scott Teeter is now 7-0 as a father.
