CLINTON, N.Y. -- The No. 21 nationally ranked Bates women's lacrosse team held NESCAC foe Hamilton to just three goals in the second half on Saturday, rallying to defeat the Continentals by a final score of 10-8.
The Bobcats (7-3, 3-2 NESCAC) earn their first road win at Hamilton (4-4, 1-4 NESCAC) since the Continentals joined the NESCAC in 2011-12.
A trio of sophomores led the Bates offense on Saturday.
Sophomore Margaret Smith (Wilton, Conn.) scored a game-high four goals and dished out two assists. Sophomore Summer Dias (West Newton, Mass.) had a big game as well, scoring three goals, dishing out an assist, and causing two turnovers. And sophomore Kathryn Grennon (Cape Elizabeth, Maine) scored two goals and tallied an assist as well.
Junior Liv Sandford (Kennebunk, Maine) continued her outstanding season, recording a game-high six ground balls, earning two draw controls and causing a team-high three turnovers. Senior captain Eliza Statile (Ipswich, Mass.) finished with six saves on 14 shots. She also recorded three ground balls.
Tatiana Bradley paced the Continentals, scoring three goals, recording two ground balls and causing a turnover. Charlotte Wynn scored two goals, dished out an assist, recorded three ground balls and caused two turnovers. Skyler Simpson added two goals of her own for Hamilton and Hannah Burrall made seven saves on 17 shots in the cage.
With 22:28 remaining in Saturday's game, Bradley scored a player-down goal to put Hamilton up 6-3.
But after that, the Continentals didn't score again for the next 17 minutes. Bates went on a 6-0 run during this time frame to take the lead for good.
The run started with senior Katie Allard (Ridgewood, N.J.) finding Dias for her second goal of the afternoon. Less than a minute later, Dias scored again, this time on senior Sydney Howard's (Ashland, Mass.) second assist of the contest.
Trailing 6-5, Smith tallied the equalizer on a free position shot with 19:16 left in the game. And Allard's lone goal of afternoon put Bates ahead for good with 14:35 remaining. Smith assisted on Allard's goal and then with 10:26 to go she added to the Bates lead with another goal of her own, on an assist from Grennon.
The Bobcats capped off their 6-0 run when junior Avery MacMullen (New Haven, Conn.) found Grennon for the latter's first goal of the day, putting the Bobcats up 9-6 with 9:01 left in regulation.
Wynn took advantage of a player-up situation to cut the Bates lead to two with 5:11 remaining. But the Bates defense continued to impress and the Bobcats went back up by three with 1:39 left on Grennon's second goal of the contest, this time on a Smith assist. The Bobcats assisted on eight of the 10 goals they scored on the afternoon.
Bradley scored her third goal of the day with 1:06 remaining, cutting the Bates lead to 10-8, but it was too little, too late, for Hamilton.
The game was very even statistically, with Bates tallying 24 shots to Hamilton's 22. Hamilton edged Bates in ground balls (21-20) and draw controls (11-9). Each team turned the ball over 25 times.
Neither team scored for the first 16 plus minutes of the first half until Smith scored on a Howard assist to put Bates up 1-0 with 13:42 left in the opening 30 minutes of action. The Continentals answered on a free position goal from Tessa Ryan with 11:14 to go in the half before Dias put Bates up 2-1 on a free position goal. The Continentals scored the next two goals to go up 3-2. Then Smith tied the score at three with 2:41 left in the half on an assist from Dias. Simpson and Bradley capped off the half with back-to-back scores to put the Continentals up 5-3 at the break.
The Bobcats took command in the second half, outscoring Hamilton 7-3 to earn their third straight victory.
Bates is back in action Wednesday when the Bobcats host Bowdoin at 7pm.