ITHACA, N.Y. – The fourth-seeded Union College women's lacrosse team erased a six-goal deficit in the third period and nearly managed another fourth-period comeback, only to fall one goal short and have their conference championship and NCAA Tournament hopes dashed in a heartbreaking 14-13 loss to second-seeded and IWLCA #23 Ithaca College in the Liberty League Tournament championship game on a rainy Sunday afternoon at Higgins Stadium.
 
Senior Greta Maurer had another fantastic game to lead Union (13-4), scoring five goals while grabbing three ground balls and controlling three draws. Sophomore Gillian Joseph scored two goals with two assists and both junior Christina Guanci and sophomore Maddy Schiller scored a pair of tallies for the visitors.
 
Union outshot Ithaca (13-6) by a 32-27 margin and only turned the ball over 11 times on the day, but the Bombers went 6-of-11 from the eight-meter arc and got nine saves from Mikaela Dattilo to escape with the victory.
 
Ithaca scored the first two goals of the game before Union got on the board first on a score by Joseph off a feed from junior Sammy Johnson, the second assist in as many games for the defender. Following another Bomber goal, Maurer ended the first period with her first of the day and Guanci scored player-up to start the second stanza to even the score. The rest of the frame belonged to Ithaca, however, as the home team scored seven of the next eight goals to take the largest lead of the day at 10-4.
 
The script flipped after Elizabeth Green's player-up goal put her team up six with 3:35 in the second. Junior Maddie Doyle made it a 10-5 game before halftime to give Union some momentum, and the visitors followed up with the first five goals of the third stanza to knot the score at 10 with 29 seconds left in the period. Maurer scored three goals during the run and both Joseph and Schiller added one each while the defensive unit forced four turnovers to keep the Bombers off the board.
 
Unfortunately for the visitors, the energy turned the other way after Maurer's last goal, as the Bombers controlled the draw and scored just before the buzzer to take a 11-10 lead into the fourth. Ithaca then scored three of the next four goals to take a 14-11 lead with 8:33 remaining. The Bombers then had a possession of nearly four minutes to take valuable time off the clock, and Union's next two possessions saw a shot off the crossbar and a save by Dattilo to keep the deficit at three.
 
But the Garnet Chargers did not give up, putting a huge scare into Ithaca in the final minutes. After senior Teagan Shay forced a turnover, Guanci came down the field and scored her second of the game to make it 14-12 with 2:18 on the clock. After Ithaca turned the ball over on the next possession, Schiller grabbed a ground ball and went right to goal to put the score at 14-13 with 31 ticks left, and Doyle controlled the subsequent draw to get one last chance. Union got the ball close to the Ithaca net, but the hurried possession did not result in a shot.
 
Coming into the day ranked 28th in Division III in the NCAA Power Index (NPI) used to select teams for the NCAA Tournament, Union dropped two spots with their loss to the nationally ranked Bombers and ultimately fell one spot short of an NCAA berth, jumped by an 8-8 Trinity (Conn.) College side and a Messiah College squad that lost in the MAC Commonwealth semifinals.
 
The game marks the final collegiate contest for Union's four seniors – Maurer, Shay, Morgan Adams and Sarah Murphy – who helped to take a program from four wins in the year before their arrival to three straight double-digit win seasons.