Madeline Shopshire scores twice for the Ravens

RINDGE, N.H. (April 4, 2012) -- The Franklin Pierce University women's lacrosse team yielded six-straight goals to open Wednesday's game against No. 6 nationally ranked Stonehill and could not recover in dropping a 19-5 decision to the Skyhawks in Sodexo Field in Rindge. The Ravens dipped to 5-4 overall and 3-2 in the Northeast-10, while Stonehill improved to 9-1 and 7-0 in league play.

Heather Sullivan tossed in a game-high five goals for the Skyhawks, while Kayla Green and Samantha Lynott added four tallies apiece. Green notched seven points on the night with the four goals and three assists, while Lynott went for six points as she added a pair of helpers. Kelsey Reilly had a five-point game with two tallies and a trio of assists.

Courtney Weber (Centerport, N.Y.) and Madeline Shopshire (Hyannis, Mass.) each scored a pair of goals to lead the Ravens, while Mary Kate Stille (North Quincy, Mass.) added a marker.

Rebecca Moore started in net for the Skyhawks and earned the win (6-0) after needing only to make two saves during the first half. Her counterpart, Franklin Pierce goalie Jillian Bolduc (Atkinson, N.H.), was tagged with the loss (5-3) after yielding 11 goals over the opening 30 minutes. Stonehill outshot the Ravens by a count of 33-17 and forced Franklin Pierce into 26 turnovers. 

Lynott got the scoring started for Stonehill a little less than two minutes into the game and the barrage of goals started from there for the Skyhawks as they raced out to a 6-0 advantage with 16:40 left in the first half. Lynott and Green each threw in a pair of markers in the opening surge.

Shopshire briefly stemmed the tide for the Ravens 13 seconds later with an unassisted marker, but Stonehill countered with five-straight goals to close out the half and take an 11-1 lead into halftime. Reilly pumped in both of her goals during that closing rally in athe first half.

The Ravens came out aggressive in the early going of the second half and scored back-to-back goals a minute apart to pull to within 11-3. Stille took a nice feed from Melissa Richtel (Castle Rock, Colo.) and fired a strike at the 29:36 mark, and Weber responded a minute later with an interception of a Stonehill outlet pass and walking in to toss in a marker to the upper left corner of the net.

The surge was short lived for the Ravens as Sullivan responded with consecutive goals to push Stonehill's advantage back out to 10 goals at 13-3.

Shopshire scored her second goal of the game with 22:21 remaining to make it 13-4, but the Skyhawks scored four-straight tallies to seal the win. 

Franklin Pierce returns to action Tuesday when the Ravens travel to Manchester to face Southern New Hampshire at 7 p.m.

For more information on Franklin Pierce men's lacrosse, please visit the team's page at athletics.franklinpierce.edu(.) To follow the program even further, please visit Franklin Pierce Athletics on YouTube (www.youtube.com/FranklinPierceSports), Twitter (www.twitter.com/FPUathletics) and Facebook (www.facebook.com/FranklinPierceRavens).