Box Score KEENE, N.H. -- While the Keene State College women's lacrosse team was unsuccessfully looking for the answer to neutralize Little East Conference goals leader Paige Schneider (East Lyme) and LEC assist leader Katie Burke (South Windsor) in Saturday's Little East Conference match, it was freshman Alyssa Powers (Ellington) who made the Owls pay most dearly.
While Schneider was scoring six goals and Burke was handing out five assists, Powers was a relative non-factor offensively until the final minutes, when she scored on two of her last three shots, including the tying goal with 5:46 left in regulation, and the game-winner 2:36 into sudden-death overtime in the Warriors' 12-11 victory at the Owls Athletic Complex.
The one-goal game is the ninth between the teams in the last 18 meetings between the programs, with Eastern winning for the fifth time in those nine one-goal decisions and pulling even at 2-2 in overtime matches in that 18-game span.
Eastern (9-4, 2-0 LEC) never led until Powers potted her 18th goal of the year on an assist from Burke to give Eastern its second straight overtime decision over Keene State (4-9, 2-1 LEC) after losing six in a row at the hands of the Owls.
Last year's OT victory on the final day of the regular season at Mansfield gave Eastern a share of the LEC regular-season title with Keene. In that game, Eastern scored the final four goals, one coming from Burke and the tying goal off the stick of Schneider with four seconds left.
With the win, Eastern broke a four-game losing streak to the Owls' on their home field, having last won at Keene, also by a goal, in 2008.
Eastern's Erin Sheehan (North Branford) won the draw to start overtime Saturday, but Eastern gave it right back to Keene without getting off a shot. Senior goalie Taylor Emmerson (Colchester), the LEC leader in goals-against average and save percentage, preserved the tie with her tenth and final save before Eastern quickly marched down field, where Powers and Burke hooked up for the winner.
On its Seniors' Day, Keene led 4-0 eight minutes into action, but Eastern responded with five of the next six goals – Schneider recording three of them, Michelina Pinto (Groton) one and Allison Wylie (Ellington) – to pull the Warriors even at 5-all. The score was tied four more times the rest of the way, with Powers creating the fifth and final tie when she connected off a pass from Jenna Glynn (West Granby) with just under six minutes left.
Pinto led Eastern with six draws and senior Taylor Behn (Amherst, NH) had five ground balls and caused five turnovers.
Schneider, who has 12 goals in the last two OT wins over Keene, became the 17th player in program history to score as many as 50 goals in a season (she now has 51), and Burke's 32 are the fifth-most by a player in a season in program history. Schneider netted 57 goals a year ago.
Eastern hosts Rhode Island College Tuesday at 4:30 p.m. in a Little East Conference match.
