Women’s Lacrosse drops tight 12-11 contest at Otterbein in regular-season finale

By Wes Mayberry

WESTERVILLE — The Ohio Northern women's lacrosse team's comeback came up just short in a 12-11 loss to Otterbein in the regular-season finale for both teams on Wednesday night at Memorial Stadium.

The Cardinals improve to 7-7 overall and finish with a 3-4 record in Ohio Athletic Conference play while dropping the Polar Bears to 8-8, 2-5.

Northern will be the No. 6 seed in the upcoming OAC Tournament and will travel to No. 3 seed John Carroll for a quarterfinal game on Saturday.

OU earns the No. 5 seed and will travel to No. 4 seed Marietta for the quarterfinals.

Freshman Rylie Kocik (Cicero, N.Y./Cicero-North Syracuse) and senior Meredith Miller (Noblesville, Ind.) both recorded hat tricks in the game, scoring three goals apiece for ONU. It marked Miller's 10th hat trick of the season and Kocik's seventh.

Freshman Elena Martin (Canfield) finished with two goals and two assists for a team-high four points.

Emily Willms led OU with five goals to go with one assist for six points on the night.

The Cardinals opened Wednesday's game with a 7-0 scoring run led by two goals each from Willms, Ava Robey and Logan Fox.

Northern closed the first quarter with goals from sophomore Keaghan Burden (Brunswick) and Miller to go into the second trailing 7-2.

The Polar Bears proceeded to outscore the Cardinals in each of the final three periods.

Kocik opened the second-quarter scoring with two consecutive goals, and a score from Martin got ONU within 7-5 with 4:00 left in the first half.

Willms scored a pair of goals over the final 1:02 of the period, sending Otterbein into halftime leading 9-5.

Fox made it 10-5 with 4:06 left in the third quarter, but goals from Miller and freshman Emma Hoersten (Hilliard/Davidson) closed the gap to 10-7 going into the fourth.

The teams traded goals over the first 11-plus minutes of the final period before Kocik got ONU within 12-10 with 3:12 remining.

Hoersten made it 12-11 with a goal less than a minute later, but the Cardinals were able to hold on for the win.

ONU out-shot Otterbein 27-22, and each team finished with 14 ground balls.