Sophomore Nadia Pelham-Lacey led the Dragons with a total of six points on the day. She was responsible for four out of the 11 goals and had two assists. Junior Devin Nihill also had an impressive offensive performance with three goals.
Coach Hannah Rudloff commented on the productiveness of the Dragon attack. “Going into Colgate we gave the attack a bit more creative license within our sets. They did a great job of managing the tempo of the game and striking when they had the best opportunities.”
The Dragons got on the board first just 18 seconds into the contest with a score courtesy of Pelham-Lacey. Colgate tied it up minutes later; however, Drexel took the lead with goals from Pelham-Lacey and Nihill, who was assisted by Caroline Thiele.
The Raiders were able to cut the Drexel lead to one. But it wasn’t long until the Dragons regained their two goal advantage. Sophomore Alex Beilman scored her third goal of the season to give Drexel a 4-2 lead.
Colgate was able to slip another score in before the intermission and the score was 4-3 in favor of Drexel going into halftime.
The Dragons came out strong in their attack after the break. Pelham-Lacey registered two quick goals. Seconds later, Senior Emily Duffey put the Dragons up 7-3 with her ninth goal of the season.
Colgate came back from the deficit with three unanswered goals. The all came within about three minutes and one was off a penalty advantage.
The Dragons answered to Colgate’s offensive burst with three unanswered goals of their own. Nihill scored two; while Lacey Aghazarian scored one.
With six minutes remaining in regulation, the Raiders brought Drexel leads to three. It didn’t last long as Aghazarian scored her second of the contest in the final minutes to bring the final score to 11-7.
Junior Carlee Ries made four saves on the day.
The Raiders committed 12 turnovers on the day; while Drexel only had eight. Madeline DiBrino, Alyssa Kaliz, Summer O’Donnell, and Pelham-Lacey had one forced turnover each on the day.
After allowing 21 goals over the past two games, Rudloff discussed the state of the defense and what adjustments need to be made going forward. She said, “We really pride ourselves on being a defense that dictates, and against Princeton we got away from that. Sunday we got back to that foundation, and did a much better job against another attack that had a lot of strong returning weapons. I think the biggest adjustment we can make is just keeping up the focus and intensity all over the field after we’ve scored a few in a row.”
The team faced off again Wednesday March 2. The Dragons defeated the Monmouth University Hawks at home in impressive fashion by a count of 11-5.
The team will return to action March 5 at 4 p.m. when they travel to Villanova.
