Oswego State women's lacrosse team played even with host College of Brockport for the entire first half and the opening 5:30 of the second half before the Golden Eagles went on a 7-2 run over a nine-minute stretch to hold on for a 19-13 win in the State University of New York Athletic Conference (SUNYAC) finale for both teams on Tuesday, April 28.
Freshman attack
Rachael Raffa (Kings Park) was the top scorer for the Lakers (9-8, 3-6 SUNYAC) with five goals and an assist, while sophomore midfielder
Bri Borrow (Oswego) scored four times, senior
Rachel Ventresca (Syracuse/Henninger) added three goals and four assists, and junior Jessicz Zenzel (Johnson City) compiled two goals and an assists.
Ventresca, the team's top offensive threat, finishes the season as the team's single-season record holder for points and assists, totaling 94 points on 58 goals and 36 assists. She surpassed the previous season marks of 90 goals and 32 assists, which were both held by Kat Stead during the 2001 season.
She completes her collegiate career after only three seasons as the third leading scorer all time with 188 points on 130 goals (fourth all-time) and 58 assists (fourth) in only 43 games. She also holds the single-game school record for goals (nine) and points (14).
Senior goalkeeper Shannon O'Brien (Syracuse/West Genesee) stopped seven shots in her final collegiate contest, finishing as the Lakers' career leader in saves with 388.
There were six ties and four lead changes as both teams went into the locker room tied at 6-6 after the opening half. The second half opened with both teams scoring twice in the opening 5:30 before Brockport (5-9, 5-4 SUNYAC) followed with four unanswered goals to take a 12-8 lead with 17:55 to play and never trailed again.
The Lakers would score 3:49 later on Raffa's third goal of the game (Ventresca assist) to pull to within 12-9, but the Golden Eagles would score three of the next four goals to build their biggest lead of the game at 15-10 with 9:24 remaining.
Oswego, who held slight advantages in shots (33-32) and draw controls (20-17) on the day, would pull to within three goals on four separate occasions in the final seven minutes, the last coming with 13 seconds remaining on an unassisted goal by Ventresca.