Second Half Run Carries No. 12 Amherst Past CMS 14-8 in NCAA Second Round

AMHERST, Mass. - The 12th-ranked Amherst women's lacrosse team used a 6-0 run to break open what had been a back-and-forth battle with Claremont-Mudd-Scripps and capture a 14-8 win on Sunday afternoon in the NCAA Division III Tournament Second Round.

With the win, Amherst improves to 13-5 on the year and advances to the NCAA Regionals next weekend. CMS, which was led by three goals from freshman Connecticut native Alex Futterman, sees its season end at 16-3 after winning its third straight SCIAC title. 

Neither team led by more than a goal for the entire first half with the Mammoths getting the upper hand going into the break at 6-5 after Dani DiTommaso scored on a free position shot with 1:32 left in the half. CMS held a 2-1 lead at the 21:19 mark, after back-to-back goals from sophomore Sally Abel and freshman Alex Futterman. After Amherst went ahead 3-2, CMS scored two straight goals, as Futterman tied it with her second, and senior Corie Hack scored from a tough angle to put the Athenas ahead 4-3 with 10:40 left in the half. 

Amherst then answered back with the next two goals, as Claire Dunbar scored with CMS down a player after a yellow card to tie it, and Isabelle Sennett scored with 4:58 to go on a free position shot to give the Mammoths the lead. Freshman Sammie Cohen scored on an extra-player opportunity off an Abel feed with 2:28 left to tie it, before DiTommaso gave her team the lead with 1:32 left, which they would end up not relinquishing. 

Dunbar opened the second half scoring 1:31 in to give Amherst the first two-goal lead for either team, but Hack answered with her second at the 26:52 mark to make it a 7-6 Mammoth lead. Sennett's free position shot stretched it to 8-6, before junior Emily Cohen scored off a feed from her younger sister Sammie to make it 8-7 with 22:41 left. 

Amherst, though, would pull away at that point with six straight goals, beginning with DiTommaso's second with 18:32 remaining. Sennett and Katherine Malone then scored 38 seconds apart (at 15:51 and 15:13) to give the Mammoths an 11-7 lead, and the Athenas weren't able to stop the momentum, as Sennett, Hannah Gustafson and DiTommaso scored three more in the final 10 minutes to make it a 14-7 game. Futterman ended the run with a goal to finish off her hat trick with 4:18 left, but that would close out the scoring. 

Hack had two goals for the Athenas, ending her season with 72 and finishing her career with 213, which ranks second all-time behind Madi Shove ('13) with 251. Sophomore Anna Gillespie had 10 saves in goal, while junior Kira Weiss led the defense with four caused turnovers and six ground balls. Sennett led all scorers with five goals for Amherst. 

CMS loses five seniors off this year's team, with Carly Keeney and Maddie Geary graduating with Hack off the Athena offense, and Eryn Rogers and Nicole Greenberg moving on from the team's defense. Five of the top six scorers return, though, led by Abel (51 goals) and Futterman (38 goals).