Phillylacrosse.com, Posted 2/13/19
From Press Release
Junior Olivia Thompson scored a career-high six goals and junior Maddie Gebert (Owen J. Roberts) added three in leading Temple lacrosse to a 12-10, come-from-behind win at Rutgers (1-1). The Owls (1-1) trailed until the final six minutes, but closed out the game on a 4-0 run.
Keys to the Game
Temple corralled 16 draw controls to the Scarlet Knights’ eight, led by six draws for junior Kara Nakrasius (Garnet Valley).
Rutgers led by as many as four goals (8-4) early in the second half, but the Owls led the Scarlet Knights to just a pair of goals the rest of the way.
Temple had 18 shots on goal to Rutgers’ 13, and 25 totals shots compared to 22 for the Scarlet Knights.
Individual Highlights
Thompson scored only once in the first half, with that goal coming in the final 13 seconds. She added five in the second half to spark the Owls’ comeback and finish with her career-high six goals.
Gebert completed her sixth career hat trick less than three minutes into the second half, and also notched one assist.
Junior Meghan Hoffman and sophomores Bridget Whitaker (Springfield-Delco) and Courtney Taylor all scored one goal apiece, with Hoffman adding one assist.
Nakrasius added three ground balls to her game-high six draw controls.
Senior Amber Lambeth (Souderton) had a strong all-around game with five draw controls, four ground balls and three caused turnovers.
Samantha Budd (West Deptfprd, NJ) had three goals and an assist for Rutgers.
First Half
After Rutgers scored the first goal, the teams traded goals over the first 12 minutes with Gebert scored the first and third of those.
After Gebert’s second goal made it 3-3 at the 18-minute mark, Rutgers rattled off three straight to take a 6-3 lead with 3:24 left in the half.
Just 13 seconds remained when Hoffman fed Thompson for a late goal to send Temple into the break down by just two, 6-4.
Second Half
Rutgers scored twice early to take an 8-4 lead, but the Owls answered with a 3-0 run to get back in it.
The Scarlet Knights again led by two, 10-8 with 12 minutes to go, but did not score again.
Hoffman’s goal at 8:28 started the Owls’ 4-0 closing run, with Thompson adding the second and third goals and Taylor scoring the final insurance goal with 59 seconds remaining.
Quotable – Temple Head Coach Bonnie Rosen
“It’s always a really tough battle for us at Rutgers and we love coming away with the win. Today was about finding our game. To have traded goals and then gone down a little bit but make the adjustments we needed to was great. Down the stretch we just out-competed. The draw control change was a huge piece and Kara came up with a ton of draws when we really needed them which sparked a lot of things for us.”
> “We used all three goalies today and they all helped us solidify our game. We really used our personnel and I was proud of everyone’s competitive spirit. We stayed composed and that was great to see.”
> “Olivia let the game kind of come to her but realized she needed to figure out how to put the ball in the net. She drew a lot of defensive attention so it was about how well she could finish. She was just determined to make things happen in every which way and was a huge part of getting our momentum going.”
Up Next
> Temple heads to #8 Princeton for a 1 p.m. game on Saturday, Feb. 16.
