SHU Ends Regular Season With 11-8 Victory Over Merrimack

Saturday, April 29

Fairfield, Conn.

12:00 PM

Sacred Heart

9-7, 8-0

Merrimack

4-13, 3-5

Team	1	2	3	4	Final F
Merrimack	4	1	2	1	8
Sacred Heart	4	3	2	2	11

Photo by: Noel Gyllenhaal

SHU Ends Regular Season With 11-8 Victory Over Merrimack

4/29/2023 3:50:00 PM | Women's Lacrosse

Box Score

Pioneers finish league play 8-0; three Pioneers achieve career milestones

By: Allison Hogue

FAIRFIELD, Conn.— The Sacred Heart University women's lacrosse team closed out the 2023 regular season and finished with an undefeated 8-0 record in Northeast Conference play after an 11-8 win against Merrimack on Saturday.

Records:
Sacred Heart: 9-7, 8-0 NEC
Merrimack: 4-13, 3-5 NEC

Top Performers:
Emma Kittredge: 4 goals
Kelly Nolan: 2 goals
Maggie Araneo: 2 goals
Lydia Werlau: 1 goal 2 GBs

Goalies:
Lisa Martin (SHU): W, 7-2; 6 saves, 6 goals
Hayley Kowalczyk (MC): L, 3-12; 11 saves, 11 goals

Of Note
Merrimack took a 2-1 lead in the first seven minutes. Junior Kelly Nolan flipped the ball into the net at the 7:24 mark, prompting a 3-0 run that gave Sacred Heart a 4-2 advantage.

The Warriors tied the game at the end of the first quarter and the beginning of the second.

Senior Emma Kittredge tallied back-to-back goals, including one at the buzzer to give the Pioneers a two-point lead going into halftime, 7-5.

Merrimack narrowed the deficit to one point at the start of the third quarter. Kittredge kept SHU in front with the hat trick at the 7:49 mark. Four minutes later, first year Emi Waldron picked up a ground ball on a Warriors' turnover and scored to give the Pioneers a 9-6 lead.

Merrimack climbed back within two to end the third quarter, but it was Nolan and graduate student Lydia Werlau that recorded one goal apiece to ice the victory.

The Pioneers outshot the Warriors 31-17. SHU saw three players achieve milestones in their careers today. Graduate student Claire McElhenny, the all-time Division I program leader in draw controls, notched a career-high 11 of SHU's 15 draw controls and surpassed the 200 in her career. McElhenny now leads the program with 208 all-time.

Werlau, the all-time goal scorer in the program, broke the program's Division I point record for the Pioneers. She now stands at 122 all-time.

Kittredge matched her career-high four goals and reached the 100th-point career mark.

Up Next
SHU will host the 2023 NEC Tournament as the No. 1 seed. The Pioneers face No. 4 Saint Francis on Thursday at 1 p.m.