Gettysburg Women’s Lacrosse Defeats Messiah in Season Opener
A career high 9-points scored by Julia Daly ’26 helped Gettysburg pull off a win in their opening game of the season. (Photo courtesy David Sinclair/Gettysburg Athletics)
By Noah Simkiss, Staff Writer
Gettysburg women’s lacrosse defeated Messiah 17-12 in the season opener on Wednesday, Feb. 19.
Although the score was close throughout the game, Gettysburg maintained the lead for most of it and a career-high nine points from the Bullets’ Julia Daly ‘26 contributed to the victory.
The game began with Messiah striking first, scoring the first goal after just two minutes. The Bullets retaliated immediately with a goal by Emily Crane ’25 which tied the score. Less than three minutes later, Gettysburg took the lead with a goal by Daly, assisted by Crane. The Bullets held the lead for the remainder of the game. Adding to the lead, Sarah Scollin ’28 scored the first goal of her career.
Messiah responded with a goal just seconds later, making the score 2-3, but subsequent goals by Crane and Julie Breedveld ’26, both assisted by Daly, solidified the Bullets’ lead at 5-2. The last three minutes of the quarter were scoreless, and the Bullets went into the second quarter up by three.
Four minutes into the second quarter, Crane scored a third goal to complete the Bullets’ first hat trick of the season and increase Gettysburg’s lead to four. The teams traded goals back and forth for the rest of the quarter, with three goals for Messiah and two for Gettysburg by Maddie Passarello ’26 and Daly. Despite the fight put up by Messiah, Gettysburg was still leading by three points at the end of the second quarter.
Less than a minute into the third quarter, Passarello scored a second goal with the assist by Grace Battle ’28. A goal by Sophie Smith ’25 two minutes later brought the score to 10-5. A three-goal rally by Messiah threatened the Bullets’ lead and narrowed the margin to just two points.
With 6:52 left to play in the quarter, Battle scored the first goal in her college career to bring the score to 11-8 and give the team some security in response to Messiah’s three-goal run.
Messiah threatened one more time in the quarter with a goal that closed the score gap to just two yet again, but goals by Michaela Kelly ’27, Passarello and Lauren O’Connell ’25, all assisted by Daly, pushed the Bullets to five points ahead.
Although they managed one more goal in the third quarter with only eighteen seconds on the clock, Messiah trailed by four or more points for the remainder of the game.
The fourth quarter began with a goal for Daly which brought the score to 15-10. A few minutes later, back-to-back goals by Messiah and Kelly for Gettysburg increased both teams’ scores by one, and a following goal by Kelly brought the Bullets’ to the seventeen points with which they ended the game.
The game was scoreless following Kelly’s goal until the last moment of the game when Messiah scored with one second left on the clock. Despite the last minute goal, Gettysburg ultimately defeated Messiah by a final score of 17-12.
The Bullets’ victory featured impressive play by Gettysburg athletes, with hat tricks by Crane, Pasarello, Daly and Kelly. Daly finished the game with a career-high nine points from six assists and three goals, and Crane contributed three goals and three assists. On defense, Camryn Epstein ‘26 led the Bullets with three ground balls and three caused turnovers.
On Saturday Feb. 22, the Gettysburg women’s lacrosse team faced Denison at home, where they won 16-6 in their home opener. Next, the Bullets will face Washington & Lee for a home game this Saturday at 1 p.m.
