PHILADELPHIA – The Saint Joseph's women's lacrosse team (1-5) returns home to host Columbia (2-4, 0-2 Ivy) this Saturday, March 19. Opening draw is scheduled for noon on Sweeney Field.
Live streaming ($) of all six remaining regular-season home games will be available via a subscription to the Atlantic 10 Digital Network. To sign up, please click here. Live stats will also be provided at SJUHawks.com.
Saturday's game will mark the fourth all-time meeting between the Hawks and the Lions; Saint Joseph's leads the series, 2-1. Columbia won the most recent meeting by a final score of 11-4 on March 21, 2004. The Hawks won the first two games of the series in 1997 (15-8) and 2001 (18-17).
Through six games, junior attacker Nora McCallion owns a team-best 22 points on a team-best 16 goals to go with six assists. Junior midfielder Maggie Egan (7g, 12a), junior attacker Sarah Smith (11g, 3a), and senior midfielder Mallory Grey (5g, 6a) also own 10-plus points for the Crimson and Gray. Egan also leads the team in draw controls (21) while senior defender Caroline Hagan (11gb, 6ct) and junior midfielder Megan Tracy (11gb, 5ct) have anchored SJU's defense. Senior goalkeeper Genevieve Giblin (1-5) has seen all 360:00 in net.
The Hawks are coming in off of a 16-4 loss at Temple this past Saturday; McCallion factored into all four scoring plays, scoring the first three goals and assisting on freshman midfielder Rebecca Lane's score.
Columbia enters Saturday's game at 2-4 overall. The Lions dropped their season opener to Drexel (6-5 OT), defeated Fairfield (14-11), fell to Harvard (15-6), and downed Marist (14-10) before dropping their last two to Cornell (14-7) and, most recently, #13 Duke (11-7) on March 16. Sara Ruzzi (11g, 1a) and Jessie Ambrose (11g, 1a) lead Columbia in scoring while Kelsey Gedin (2-4) owns an 11.16 GAA and .396 save percentage in all 360:15. Columbia went 5-10 out of the Ivy League last season.
Under the direction of second-year head coach Alex Kahoe, Saint Joseph's returns 18 Hawks, including nine starters, from last year's squad and adds eight newcomers for the 2016 season. The Hawks were picked to finish eighth in the Atlantic 10 Conference this season, according to the conference's preseason poll as announced on February 3.
SATURDAY'S LACROSSE GAMES IN MEMORY OF PAT CULLINAN
The Saint Joseph's men's and women's lacrosse programs will honor the memory of longtime Saint Joseph's men's lacrosse coach Pat Cullinan during the squads' doubleheader this Saturday, March 19. Cullinan passed away this past October 15 after a lengthy bout with cancer. Both teams will wear t-shirts in memory of Cullinan during warm-ups, and donations will be collected for both games. All collected donations will go to the HEADstrong Foundation™, an athletic-rooted organization committed to improving the quality of life for cancer patients and their families through providing essential programs and services. The men's game vs. Delaware will be played at 3:00 p.m., and the Cullinan family will be honored between games.
INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION
The Saint Joseph's women's lacrosse program hosted Meiji University, out of Tokyo, Japan, on March 7 on Sweeney Field in an exhibition match-up.
