The Belmont Abbey women's lacrosse team fell to Slippery Rock by a 15-11 score this evening in a game that was played at the Queens University Sports Complex. The game was called with 35 seconds left due to lightning in the area. Slippery Rock moves to 1-0 in its season opener, while the Abbey drops to 3-4.

The game began as a back-and-forth affair as Megan Patton put the Crusaders on top 1-0 with a free position goal at the 27:44 mark. Slippery Rock scored the next two goals to take its first lead, but Laura Dowd and Emily Hudgins countered with goals 46 seconds apart to put the Abbey back in command with a 3-2 lead. After a SRU goal tied the game at three, Katy Connery scored with 16:04 showing to move the Crusaders back in front 4-3.

From there, Slippery Rock scored six unanswered goals in the next nine minutes to seize control of the game and claim a lead it would never lose. Elyse Mohn closed the half with a goal to close the gap to 9-5 at intermission.

Both teams scored six goals each in the final 30 minutes as the Crusaders whittled the Slippery Rock lead down to three on three occasions. Laura Dowd scored the first goal of the second half to cut the lead to 9-6, but a free position shot by Brittany Jailet halted the Abbey momentum briefly, as that strike was countered by two unanswered by the Crusaders, both by Mohn to shrink the margin to 10-8.

Slippery Rock answered with two straight goals to move the edge to 12-8 with 15:28 to go. Hudgins pulled the Abbey to within three at the 13:52 mark, but Slippery Rock scored the next two to open up a 14-9 edge.

The Abbey fought back, as Mohn and Gina Colella both struck on free position shots, the last coming at the 8:37 mark, to cut the lead to 14-11, but Slippery Rock scored with 50 seconds left to provide the final score.

The game was stopped on the ensuing draw control 15 seconds later.

Mohn led all players with four goals on nine shots as the Abbey outshot Slippery Rock 33-25. Dowd and Hudgins added two each, while Colella, Patton and Connery had one. Mohn added an assist.

Casey Quinn and Lauren Laubach led Slippery Rock with three goals, while Jailet, Emma VanDenberg and Holly Webb all had two each. Paige Constantino, Katie Roof and Amy Halls had one each.