Sewanee, TN – The Piedmont College women’s lacrosse team came up just shy of completing the perfect season falling 18-14 earlier tonight to hosting Sewanee in Tennessee. The Tigers move to an incredible 15-0 taking the battle of undefeateds handing Piedmont its first loss in its last 15 regular season games.
Logan Ruck led the visitors with her four goals on the evening scoring that quartet on just six shots. Maggie McDaniel and McKynsey Douglas had three scores each on the night.
Sewanee took a quick 3-0 lead before Ruck dented the board for Piedmont on the first of back-to-back efforts to make it a 3-2 game with just under nine minutes played in the first. Ruck would score the first three goals for Piedmont who trailed 6-4 after McKynsey Douglas tabbed the Lady Lions’ fourth, but the Tigers scored four of the next five in the game to take a commanding 10-5 lead into the half.
Wednesday marked the first time that Piedmont had trailed at halftime of any contest, regular season and postseason included, in 31 consecutive games. The last time PC trailed at halftime to any team – February 15, 2014 in the season opener, a 16-12 loss to none other than the Tigers of Sewanee, the same foe that Piedmont played earlier tonight and trailed by five at the break.
Douglas and Ruck accounted for all five of Piedmont’s first half goals and Douglas would stay at it in the second half scoring PC’s first goal coming out of the break as the visitors would score two of the first three goals in the second period to cut the lead down to four at 11-7 Sewanee.
However, the Tigers’ Mallory Grimm helped the home team respond scoring three of her four goals on the night in the second half including back-to-back efforts that pushed Sewanee’s lead to the largest it had been on the night, a six-goal advantage with still 22 minutes remaining in regulation.
Trailing 15-9 with less than 17 to play, Piedmont scored three straight in a 7-minute period to make it a three goal game putting the season of perfection within grasp. Pushed to the brink, Sewanee looked to preserve its own unbeaten record by scoring back-to-back goals in about a minute to answer and put the game out of reach for Piedmont down the stretch.
Taking her first loss in the cage for PC was Blake Forrest who had five saves on the evening moving her record to 12-1 as a starter this season. The win went to Sewanee’s Crawford Horan who has taken all 15 wins in the cage this season for the Tigers.
Piedmont trailed Sewanee in the ground ball column 23-14 as a team, but did force the Tigers into 14 second half turnovers which kept the Lady Lions within striking distance until the closing moments.
Cahner Manns had an incredible night on the draw with a game-high nine setting a new season high after collecting eight on two different occasions, her last two outings before tonight. Manns’ four best performances on the draw this season have come in Piedmont’s games against opponents from the Southern Athletic Association coming up with six in a win against Birmingham-Southern earlier in the year.
With the loss, Piedmont falls to 13-1 overall ending the regular season with just one loss to the still unbeaten Tigers of Sewanee.
Piedmont will now have a little over a week off from competition before facing Ferrum College in the semifinals of the USA South Championship Tournament in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. The Lady Lions enter the tourney as the top seed facing the #4 seed Panthers after taking the regular season meeting between the two 12-7 earlier this year.
The postseason contest with the Panthers is set for a 1:00 pm start on Friday, April 17.
