NEWBERRY — The Newberry Wolves womens lacrosse team played an excellent game Saturday afternoon and had a late lead, but was unable to capitalize as a late Tusculum run gave the Pioneers a 12-11 victory.
With the loss, the Wolves drop to 3-5 (0-2 SAC) on the season.
After trailing 8-4, Newberry went on a huge run to seize the lead. Kylee Kanealey’s second goal of the season cut the lead to 8-5 with 25 minutes to play. Marissa Plumer scored to make it 8-6. After nearly nine minutes with neither team gaining an advantage, Sophie Moore scored an unassisted goal to shave the lead to one before Keegan Hanson scored her second goal of the season, just over a minute later to tie the score.
With the game knotted at eight apiece, Chloe Wood scored her team and conference leading 26th and 27th goals to give Newberry a 10-8 lead. Although Juliette Cusano cut the lead to one with her 23rd goal of the year, Plumer scored once again to give the Wolves a two goal lead with two minutes on the clock. Tusculum capitalized quickly; however, as Tui Tuininga scored back to back goals just 31 seconds apart to tie the score. The Pioneers won the crucial draw control, and Cusano knifed through multiple Newberry defenders for the game-winning goal with just 14 seconds to play.
The first half saw the Wolves struggle to get much going as Tusculum took an early 3-0 lead. Plumer scored her first goal of the game, but Cusano answered to keep the lead at 4-1. Moore, Kylie Marek and Wood then traded goals to make it 5-3 before Emily Youngblood scored consecutive goals, giving the Pioneers a 7-3 lead at halftime.
Plumer led the Wolves with four goals, while Wood had three and Moore had two.
Newberry won several crucial statistics, including shots (28-26), shots on goal (25-21), forced turnovers (18-14), ground balls (31-23), and free position shots (10-5).