Top Seed Women's Lacrosse Fends Off Harford For Trip To National Title Game

HENRIETTA, N.Y. – The top seed Anne Arundel Community College women's lacrosse team fended off a furious comeback attempt from the fourth seed Harford Owls in a 19-16 victory in the NJCAA Semifinals Saturday at John. L. DiMarco Field on the campus of Monroe Community College.

AACC will make its eighth appearance in the NJCAA championship tilt Sunday when the Riverhawks will face second seed Onondaga in the national championship at 1 p.m. The Riverhawks last won the national title in 2007. Onondaga defeated third seed Monroe, 19-11, in Saturday's second semifinal

AACC (9-0) was led by eight goals and five assists from Julia Sokolowski, while Lyndsey Miller added five goals and an assist. Nellie Gownley scored two goals and assisted another; Bailey Makarovich added two goals. Savanna Reitz scored a goal and assisted one.

The Riverhawks scored the first four goals of the game and held a 9-3 lead at the end of the first quarter. Harford strung together four goals in the second quarter to get with three goals, but Sokolowski scored her sixth of the game a minute before halftime to send AACC to halftime with a 12-8 lead.

It was all Riverhawks in the third quarter as they scored six-straight goals to seemingly have the game in hand, 18-8, but Harford still had some life and started to claw back with a late third-quarter goal and the first two of the fourth to make it 18-11 in favor of AACC.

Miller scored once more for the Riverhawks at the midpoint of the fourth only to see Harford gain momentum to score five goals over the final 5:41 for the 19-16 final.

AACC held a 28-11 advantage in draw controls, led by nine each from Miller and Gownley, and six from Reitz, the draw specialist.

The Riverhawks committed 22 turnovers in the game, and struggled to consistently clear the ball, finishing 9-for-14 in clear attempts on the day.

Defensively AACC caused 13 of Harford's 20 turnovers, led by four caused turnovers from Reitz, three from Sokolowski, and two from defender Kaitlin Kenney.

Goalkeeper Kaitlyn Evans made seven saves in the game to improve to 9-0 and bring AACC back to the title game for the first time since 2019.

The win over Harford marked the fourth on the year for AACC, avenging a loss to the Owls in the NJCAA semifinal in 2022.