Photo by: Tony Leon/ActionWestPhotography.com
ORANGE, Calif. – The Whittier College women's lacrosse team flirted with an upset victory over Chapman University all night before the Panthers pulled away late to hold on for the 12-8 victory.
Chapman attempted to put away the Poets all game long but the Purple & Gold proved feisty for the entire 60 minutes putting together yet another strong performance.
The Poets trailed early 2-0 but cut the deficit to one with a free position goal from Rebekah Delledera (Livermore, Calif.). The deficit stretched to 5-1 midway through the first half until Whittier put together two unanswered from Tiffany Reyes (Scottsdale, AZ) and Angelina Cuevas (Long Beach, Calif.) that moved the score to 5-3.
Trailing 7-3 at the break, Whittier came out strong in the second getting a quick strike from Meesha Robinson (Redondo Beach, Calif.) that the cut the lead to three but that's as close as they would get as CU would rattle off five straight to expand their lead to 12-4 with 9:22 to play.
But the Poets put together one final push in the final 7:30 as they put together their own run of four started by a man-up goal from Cuevas and capped off with back to back tallies from Robinson. But that would be the final offense generated by WC as they would fall by four 12-8.
Robinson and Cuevas both finished with three goals apiece. Delledera had a goal and an assist, picked up four draw controls, and caused two turnovers.
In between the posts, senior Nicole Yorba (Poway, Calif.) had a strong outing finishing with eight saves against 20 shots, forced two turnovers and picked up six groundballs.
Whittier returns to action this Saturday, April 11 as they travel to Claremont-M-S with game time set for 7:00pm.
