Dukes fall to Tribe
JMU shutout in second half, loses 12-6 to W&M
By James Irwin, senior writer
Posted on April 10, 2006

In a game with major conference tournament implications, William & Mary marched into JMU Lacrosse Complex and used a relentless attack to kick JMU right out of the driver’s seat in the Colonial Athletic Association.

Tribe midfielder Emily Vitrano scored six goals and goalkeeper Debby Petracca held the Dukes scoreless over the last 33:07 to lift William & Mary to a 12-6 win Sunday afternoon and catapult the Tribe into a three-way tie atop the conference standings.

With the win, William & Mary (8-4 overall, 3-1 CAA) joins JMU (8-4, 3-1) and Towson (6-5, 3-1) at the top of the CAA. The Tigers beat the Tribe 13-11 last week and if the season were to end today Towson would own the No. 1 seed in the conference tournament. William & Mary would be No. 2 and the Dukes, who started the day all alone in first place, would be the third seed. JMU plays at Towson Friday.

“We need to remember how we played today,” JMU coach Kellie Young said. “We’ve got a tough stretch coming up leading into the tournament and we’re the team that has to make a change.”

That change has to come on offense. For only the second time this season, the Dukes turned the ball over more times than their opponent. They had trouble all day moving the ball through the midfield and struggled to place good shots on Petracca.

“We just threw the ball away,” Young said. “You can’t get a groundball and then chuck it up the sideline and our shot selection was poor. We just hit her every time. We had our chances.”

The game had all the early billings of a shoot-out as the Dukes and Tribe traded goals for the first 30 minutes. JMU took an early 2-1 lead on junior attacker Maria Bosica’s goal, then watched William & Mary take a 4-2 advantage before rebounding to tie the game at 5-5 with 8:25 left in the first half. In a physical opening period, the Tribe took an 8-6 lead into the intermission.

“We knew they were a feisty team,” Bosica said. “There were a lot of yellow cards. It was pretty intense.”

William & Mary’s intensity manifested itself in the form of good defense in the second half. The Dukes came out firing and had good looks at the net but time and time again, Petracca was equal to the task.

“To hold them scoreless in the second half was extremely surprising,” William & Mary coach Tara Brown said. “We came out defensively, ready to slide on challenges and we limited the possibilities. I was shocked.”

But Brown wasn’t nearly as shocked as JMU’s high-octane offense. The Dukes entered play averaging better than 13 goals per game and riding a three-game winning streak. JMU received multi-goal games from Bosica and junior attacker Kelly Berger but couldn’t mount a scoring run in the second half.

And as Petracca continued to stonewall JMU’s offense, Vitrano slowly extended the Tribe lead with a goal and two assists in the second half to put the game away for good.

“She got the opportunities and finished,” Brown said of Vitrano. “This was a team attack and we came off good movement. This was a big win for us.”

Across the field, the attention turned to contemplation.

“We need to take today and learn from it,” Bosica said. “We’ve still got four games to go. We’ll see them again.”