By Julie Kayzerman '16

Senior Day Program

Ewing, NJ… The College of New Jersey women's lacrosse team honored their three seniors with a victory on Senior Day, edging out Kean University, 16-7, in a hard-fought New Jersey Athletic Conference matchup on Saturday, April 30 in Lion's Stadium.

The No. 2 ranked Lions among Division III competition now improve their overall record to 16-1 and 6-0 in the NJAC while Kean University fell to 12-5 overall and 2-4 in the NJAC.

The win marked the last regular-season home game for seniors Megan Devlin (Marmora, NJ/Ocean City), Cortney Natalicchio (New Egypt, NJ/New Egypt) and graduate student Erin Waller (Washington, Twp., NJ/Washington Twp.).

The Lions pounced quickly with a goal from Devlin just 1:45 after the starting whistle. Sophomore Amanda Muller (Hillsborough, NJ/Hillsborough) followed with a goal of her own just under two minutes later to put the Lions up, 2-0, setting the pace of the game.

However, Kean made its mark, answering back with a goal from sophomore Krista LaMaina to close the gap, 2-1 at 9:13.

Lion's freshman midfielder Erin Harvey (Mount Laurel, NJ/Lenape) stepped up huge for the Lions, netting three goals in the half while freshman Kathleen Jaeger (Whitehouse Station, NJ/Hunterdon Central) and sophomore Emily Kratz (Robbinsville, NJ/Robbinsville) added a goal apiece in the first 30 minutes.

However, an offensive surge from Kean University resulted in three Cougar goals in the last 12 minutes of the half, forcing the Lions to leave the field only up by two points at 7-5.

The second half highlighted a momentum change in favor of a dominant Lion's offense led by a stellar performance from attacker Kratz. Kratz notched four goals in the half to total a career-high of five goals in a game for TCNJ.

Junior attacker Mia Blackman (Arlington, VA/Field School), Devlin and Jaeger each scored twice in the contest and Muller added an assist on a Kratz goal. Waller also added a tally for the Lions as the college dominated the second half, outscoring the Cougars, 9-2.

Devlin enjoyed an outstanding Senior Day, picking up seven groundballs to increase her career total to 106.

TCNJ outshot Kean, 38-12 in the match as Cougar goalie Nikki Apostolopoulos made an impressive 20 saves in the loss.

The college returns to Lions' Stadium on Wednesday, May 4 when they host the NJAC tournament semi-final game at 7 p.m. against an opponent to be determined.