Rowan earned their first home-field win on Wednesday evening in Glassboro, a, 15-7, win over Ursinus in non-conference play. It’s the eleventh straight win over the Bears for Rowan, a streak that began in 2015 to the day. It’s also the Profs’ sixteenth win over Ursinus.
The Profs and Bears traded leads in the first half, locking scores at 1-1, 2-2, and 3-3 before Rowan gained a 4-3 lead on a Trish Gillen free position goal at the 4:45 mark.
18 seconds later, Gillen scored again on an assist from Elaina Corson.
“That’s what she does every day in practice,” head coach Lindsay Delaney said. “We challenged the seniors coming out of Saturday’s game for a reason. This is what we see from them at practice, and this is what we need to see in games. I think they just need to realize it was their time.”
Gillen doesn’t always attack the net, a rarity for her position. Today, she felt the confidence boost from her opening goal and reaped the benefits.
“I had that first goal, and it was a little confidence booster, and then it just cooked from there,” Gillen said. “I think that worked in my favor.”
A goal at the 1:32 mark in the first half, Devin Buggy on an assist from Meghan Vizian. Just before the half, it cut the Rowan lead to 5-4.
Rowan came out firing in the second half, beginning with a goal from Madison Rothwein 63 seconds into the half. After back and forths between both sides, Alexis Lowry scored on a free position shot.
Trish Gillen got going just over a minute later, a hat trick for Gillen. It sparked another goal from Rowan with 5:27 remaining in the third, again from Alexis Lowry.
The Profs’ lead got up to 11-4 in the third quarter, capped off by a Fiona Lockhart goal with 40 seconds left to go in the third quarter.
Another goal, the second from Rider transfer Madison Rothwein, brought Rowan’s lead to 12-4 with 11:20 left to play.
Rowan’s offense continued to thrive in the final quarter, including a goal from Elaina Corson with 2:39 left to play. It was Corson’s fourth, continuing her streak of four goals in each of the opening three games of the season.
Rowan secured 14 draw controls in the win, a vast improvement from the first two games of the year.
“Researching [Ursinus’] drawers, we knew that it was a good matchup with Maddie [Rothwein],” Delaney said. “So we knew that Maddie starting in the draw circle made sense. And I didn’t really like the way we were running through the ball. Elaina [Corson] runs through every ball, so it made sense to put [Elaina] up on the draw circle.”
Rothwein had eight draw controls through the game, while Corson and Lowry added three apiece.
Rowan will get set to Stevens Institute of Technology on Saturday, the 14th-ranked team in the latest IWLCA national poll.
“We [need to] make them call timeout first,” said Delaney on the key to working past the challenge that lies ahead. “They call timeout before we do, we’ll win the game.”
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