Senior Hilary Lahn scored 10 goals and had two assists and freshman Natalie White tallied seven goals, as the women’s lacrosse team recorded a 2-1 record on the week to improve to 3-3 overall. In a pair of Liberty League contests, RPI was victorious in a thrilling 12-11 come-from-behind overtime game against the Vassar Brewers but couldn’t reproduce the magic in a 12-8 loss to the Hamilton Continentals. The Red Hawks rebounded from the loss to Hamilton with a 11-4 non-conference victory over the Western New England College Golden Bears.

“The Vassar game was, needless to say, a nail-biter,” said head coach Leslie Khachadourian. “We were flat coming out for the first half, but, true to form we were able to battle our way back one goal at a time.”

After 12 scoreless minutes to begin the game against the Brewers, White and Lahn scored 38 seconds apart to give the Red Hawks a 2-0 lead. Four and a half minutes later, Lahn put RPI up by three off an assist from freshman Morgan Wahl.

Vassar took over the rest of the half. They got five goals in a five and a half minute span, including three off the stick of Christine Castellan, to take a 5-3 lead into halftime.

After freshman Carly Strife and Brewer Kristin Hogan exchanged goals seven seconds apart, two and a half minutes into the second half, junior Kate Phillips brought RPI to within one at the 20:35 mark. Sophomore Sabrina Alimi assisted on the goal.

Vassar extended the lead to three on goals by Emille Moeckel and Jessica Johnson with 16 and a half minutes left. Over the next six minutes, sophomore Andrea Flynn, Moeckel, White, and Brewer Ali Fantl exchanged goals to give Vassar a 10-7 lead.

Lahn recorded her third and fourth goals of the game to pull the Red Hawks to 10-9 with just under two minutes left. White completed the comeback with 24 seconds left in regulation, cashing in on a free position shot, her third goal of the game. Lahn had a chance to be the hero for RPI in regulation when she was awarded a free position shot with six seconds left, but goaltender Ariel Nelson made a huge save on the shot.

In the first overtime, Phillips and Lahn tallied goals to give the Red Hawks a 12-10 lead.

Moeckel pulled the Brewers to within one in the second overtime with her fourth goal of the game, but RPI was able to win the ensuing faceoff and run the clock out for the victory.

“We were lucky to escape with that win having played the way we did in the first half,” commented Khachadourian. “We were playing not to lose for a while rather than playing to win.”

Nelson had nine saves in the loss and senior Megan Gaul made 13 saves for RPI.

Hamilton, the 11th-ranked team in the nation, came out on fire on Saturday, scoring six unanswered goals in the first 21 minutes. Junior Rebecca Primm got Rensselaer on the board with an unassisted goal at 5:19.

After Suzy Belmont put the Continentals back up by six, Phillips and Strife scored on free position shots 50 seconds apart to pull the Red Hawks within four at halftime.

In the second half, RPI was the one to come out quick, getting goals from Strife, Phillips, and Lahn to pull to 7-6 with 23 minutes left. Hamilton responded, however, scoring the next four goals to extend the lead to five.

Junior Jen Wahl scored her first goal of the season off an assist from Lahn at the 8:21 mark. White recorded her first of the game at the 1:04 mark, but it was too little, too late, as Inga Stots tallied her fifth goal of the game with 16 seconds to finish the scoring.

Kalley Greer made six saves for Hamilton and Gaul recorded 14 in the loss.

Right from the opening faceoff against WNEC, RPI controlled the play. White took a feed from Lahn and burried the ball into the back of the net, just 47 seconds into the game.

After Kristen Pimental tied the score at one, the Red Hawks rallied off four straight goals. Lahn, Phillips, and White scored in a two and a half minute span to give RPI a 4-1 lead. Junior Jen Wahl assisted on White’s goal.

Ten minutes later, Strife put Rensselaer up by four off an assist by Alimi.

Golden Bears Alyson Nowell and Pimental sandwiched goals around Phillips’ second goal of the game to pull to 6-3 with 10:37 left in the half.

The Red Hawks extended the lead to 8-3 at halftime on goals by Jen Wahl and Lahn.

Despite having the lead at halftime for the first time this season, Khachadourian wasn’t happy with her teams play. “I didn’t look at the score, but I thought it should have been more.”

In the second half, RPI outscored WNEC 3-1 on two goals by Lahn and one by White.

When asked what her team did defensively to allow a season low four goals, Khachadourian commented, “the WNEC attack wasn’t as strong as some we’ve seen this season but on our [one-on-one] defense we knew they were all right handed so we tried to force them to the left.”

The Red Hawks have only one game this week when they travel to Nazareth for a non-conference game on Saturday at 12 pm.