Orangeburg, NY (4/27/11)  Despite suffering a 21-10 set back this afternoon in the final regular season game of 2011 Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference (CACC) play against the visiting Lions of Georgian Court University, the Dominican College women's lacrosse team had a very memorable day honoring the seniors on Senior Day at the DC Lacrosse Field.

Senior Sarah Kiernan (Saugerties, NY) and freshman Maggie Brocklebank (Long Branch, NJ) led the Lady Chargers with three goals a-piece in the loss.  Midfielder Silje Karlsen (Vernon, NJ) netted two goals and three assists to total a team leading five points.

Freshman goalie Amanda Caprio (Point Pleasant, NJ) made six saves in the game.

GCU netted the game's first goal with 27:25 left in the first half, but the Lady Chargers tied the game less than a minute later as Karlsen netted her team leading 32nd goal of the season on the man-up opportunity.  A second free position goal by the Lions regained a one goal lead, but Dominican answered back with two straight goals, both by Kiernan off the assists by Karlsen and sophomore Michelle Fiorvanti (Commack, NY) to give DC their first lead of the game, 3-2.

About four minutes later Georgian Court went on their own 2-0 spurt to reclaim a 4-3 advantage with 15:57 left in the first half.  The Lady Chargers rallied with three consecutive goals as Brocklebank tallied her first goal of the contest and senior attacker Jessica Bianchi (East Islip, NY) followed with her first goal of the season off the pass from Traci-Joan Muniz (Middlesex, NJ).  Brocklebank netted her second goal of the game with 10:51 to go before the break to see DC go up 6-4.

Back-to-back goals by the Lions tied the game at 6-all, but junior midfielder Aubree Williams (Great Meadows, NJ) put Dominican ahead 37 seconds later with the unassisted goal for a 7-6 lead.  GCU closed out the first half scoring with a goal to make the score 7-7 at the break.

The Lions opened up their 14-goal second half with the first four goals of the second stanza to take an 11-7 lead with 24:15 to play.  Kiernan completed the hat trick with her third game goal and 23rd season goal off the assist from Karlsen to cute the deficit to 11-8.  After the Lions regained a four goal lead, Brocklebank netted her third game goal off Karlsen's third assist to once again cut the Lion lead to three goals, 12-9, with 21:20 on the clock.

A 5-0 run by Georgian Court built a 17-9 lead, but Karlsen broke the run with the unassisted goal with 8:20 left to play to make the score 17-10.  The Lions closed out the game with four unanswered goals for the 21-10 victory.

With the loss Dominican falls to 7-8 overall and 6-6 in the CACC, while Georgian Court improves to 13-4 overall and 12-0 in conference play.

Dominican has earned their first CACC Tournament appearance in program history which will take place this weekend at Georgian Court University.  Dominican has been seeded fourth, by virtue of a coin toss due to tie with Holy Family University, and will face the top-seeded GCU Lions at 1pm on Saturday.

Before the game, the Lady Chargers and coaching staff honored seniors Bianchi, Kiernan and Karlsen in a ceremony.

To add to the festivities, Lady Charger player Sarah Kiernan was surprised as her boyfriend and Dominican College men's lacrosse player, Christopher Jones, proposed to her during the ceremony.

Congratulations to the Seniors and Sarah and Chris!