Photo by: Tony Leon/ActionWestPhotography.com
WHITTIER, Calif. – The Whittier College women's lacrosse team who was coming off of a double overtime victory over Redlands University this past week helping them gain a first round home game for the SCIAC Championships finished their 2012 season in disappointing fashion as they dropped a 16-9 decision to Pomona-Pitzer.
Pomona-Pitzer used 4-0 runs in the first and second halves to pull out the 16-9 victory led by Jana London who finished with a game and season high nine goals on 15 shots to go with four draw controls.
With the victory, the Sagehens now advance to Saturday's SCIAC semifinal against top-seeded Redlands.
The sensational junior season of Carolyn Mukai ended with a four-goal effort while sophomore standout Shaina Denny added two of her own.
The Poets (6-11) made a furious rally to overcome a 7-3 halftime deficit by scoring three of the first five goals of the second stanza to pull within two but following Raquel Damti's goal, Pomona-Pitzer extended the lead with a four-goal spurt over the next six minutes until it was stopped by an unassisted goal by Denny at the 8:41 mark that pulled the Poets to within six.
This would be as close as Whittier would get as the Sagehens closed out the game scoring three of the last five goals capped off by a point blank goal from London with seven seconds to play. Whittier did however put out a strong effort in the end within four minutes to play getting back to back goals from Dana Barraco and Lily Baxter but in the end it wasn't enough to overcome the substantial deficit.
Poet goalie Nicole Yorba finished with seven saves in the loss on 23 shots, while her counterpart Casey Leek finished with seven as well.
Pomona-Pitzer controlled the draw controls on the evening winning 18 compared to Whittier's 9 and was a perfect 8-8 in the second half on clear attempts finishing with a total of 15-17.
