Suffolk University women’s lacrosse defeated Nichols College 18-6 in an important conference game, moving the Rams into the seventh seed with one game left to play.
“The energy was definitely higher today knowing what was on the line,” said goalie Charlotte Guziejka.
Suffolk started off hot with attacker Carley Ehwa putting the Rams on the board first. Five minutes later attacker Bridget O’Leary scored two goals in 30 seconds of game time, Suffolk never looked back from that point.
Suffolk ended the first quarter with an 8-3 lead, three of those first quarter goals came from O’Leary. She had four goals in just the first half, finishing the game with six goals and three assists. The offense as a whole was clicking on all cylinders, continuing their momentum from their 18-6 win against the Wentworth Institute of Technology.
“I think we came out hot, we communicated and were all having fun so I think that’s what helped us to be so successful,” said O’Leary.
On the other side of the field Suffolk had outstanding play in net from Guziejka. Allowing only six goals on 17 shots. The defense as a unit was on point for the Rams, for a stretch they didn’t allow a goal for 27 minutes of game time.
Defensive consistency is something the Rams have been searching for this season and in the past two games something has clicked for them. Guziejka has been the backbone of this defensive improvement over the last two games allowing 12 goals on 32 shots over the two game stretch.
“Personally I’ve really been working on seeing the ball more rather than the player and focusing in on that,” said Guziejka. “As a defensive unit we knew that to get the job done today we were gonna have to have a lot of communication and so we talked about that before the game and executed it very well today.”
Before the win today Suffolk was in a three-way tie for the sixth seed with Nichols and Western New England University, with their conference records all sitting at 4-4.
“We weren’t putting all of our thought into that, we were definitely just focused on what was in front of us,” said O’Leary. “That was definitely something that was in the back of all of our minds.”
After the win today Suffolk has moved up to the seventh seed. With one game left they will need a win against No. 3 seed University of Hartford and a WNE loss against top-seeded Endicott.
“We knew that this was gonna be huge for playoffs, we knew that we had to come in calm, composed and it wasn’t gonna change how we were gonna come into the game,” said Guziejka.
The Rams will take on Hartford in a must-win season finale April 22.
