No. 10 Rollins Smokes Florida Tech 18-6 In Women’s Lacrosse
By Florida Tech // April 9, 2015
Sara Grenier scored three goals
BREVARD COUNTY • MELBOURNE, FLORIDA – Florida Tech (6-6, 0-1 SSC) dropped its first-ever Sunshine State Conference game against No. 10 Rollins College (10-3, 3-1 SSC) on Wednesday night at Palm Bay High School’s Pirate Stadium.
The Panthers played well in the first half and went into the break down 6-2, but the Tars opened the second half with a monster run and cruised to an 18-6 win.
“You saw us play a tough Rollins tonight”, said head coach Corinne Desrosiers. “We tried to stretch our core players across the full field deep of Rollins players.”
Freshman Sara Grenier scored three goals and sophomore Allie Modica finished with two goals and a team-high six ground balls and seven draw controls.
Freshman Caroline Dunleavy added one goal and classmate Mary Gormley recorded an assist in the loss.
Kristina Coppolino finished with a game-high six points on three goals and three assists for the Tars. Tyler Thomas tallied four goals and Megan Curry scored three goals along with one assist in their team’s win.
Rollins opened with four straight goals to take a 4-0 lead at the 15:10 mark of the first half.
Allie Modica drove through the defense, drew a foul and converted on the free possession opportunity to put FIT up on the board with less than 10 minutes remaining in the period.
The Tars answered with Tyler Thomas’ third goal of the game off an assist from Ginevra Czech.
Rollins scored less than two minutes later on a man-up goal by Czech to push its lead to 6-1. With 28 seconds remaining, Modica drove through the epicenter of the Tars’ pressure defense and found the back of the net to make it a 6-2 game heading into halftime.
Rollins came out in the second period on fire, scoring the first 12 goals of the half to take an 18-2 lead with 4:13 remaining in the game.
Curry and Coppolino each scored three goals during the run, as the Panthers could not find an answer for the Tars high-scoring attack.
However, FIT’s offense woke up at the end of the game, scoring four goals, including three by Grenier, to decrease the deficit to 12 before the final whistle.
“We played a great first half and really had them on the ropes,” stated Desrosiers.
“I think at halftime, we kind of congratulated ourselves on a good first half, and assumed that was solid enough for the second half. However, Rollins came out harder and changed up their game plan. We failed to make the needed adjustments and it cost us.”
“It may be slightly unfair of me to ask for a full 60 minutes against a top 10 team, but if we want to continue to make strides, that’s exactly what I’m going to do. We will bring this emotion over to Tampa’s house on Saturday,” said Desrosiers.
Freshman goalkeeper Stephanie Stuart played great for FIT, finishing with 12 saves in the contest, while her counterpart, Malorie Olin, recorded six stops in goal for Rollins.
Florida Tech continues its SSC schedule on Saturday as it travels to face the University of Tampa Spartans at 7:30 p.m. at Pepin Stadium in Tampa, Florida.
Links to live video and stats courtesy of Tampa can be found at FloridaTechSports.com
