BY COLE McNANNA // APRIL 8 2017 //

With four games left in the season, the women’s lacrosse team honored their seniors and hosted the Wentworth Institute of Technology Leopards for a Commonwealth Coast Conference match-up.

With the season winding down and conference play running low, the Colonels need as many wins as they can get to help jockey for position before the CCC Tournament.

“We needed another conference win,” said Head Coach Caitlin Roberts. “In order to get into the tournament you need at least three conference wins, so coming into it we knew we had to catch this one because we know we already let two games get away.”

However, before they could quite get on the field to play the game, the seven graduating members of the team were honored with a pre-game ceremony of flowers, speeches and plenty of tears. Their family members joined them on the turf for a pre-game embrace before playing on the Walter M Katz Field for one of the last few times.

Co-Captain Rachel Lawrence greets her parents on the field before the game. // IMAGE CREDIT COLE MCNANNA

Senior Kelly Parker leads Curry in scoring and has been near the top of the scoring log for all four years here and is currently in a battle for the top spot in the Conference for goals, to nobody’s surprise.

“It was our senior day so we were really excited but a little nervous,” Parker noted. “We knew it was a huge conference game and we’re finally at home in the late part of our schedule but we needed this win and we didn’t let the nerves get the best of us.”

There was a transition phase that they went through and despite trailing 2-1 five minutes into it; the Senior Takeover began for the Colonels.

Freshman Abby Dubel tied the game at two to make way for seniors Lauren Carroll, Malorie Knowlton and Parker to take over. The trio of seniors recorded eight of the next nine goals for Curry, spanning both halves and pushing their lead to the largest margin of the game in 11-6 with about 12 minutes to play.

The Leopards tried getting something going but the senior strength of Curry came through again as Abby Carnevale joined the fun and grabbed a goal of her own on senior day. It was of course Parker who closed the stat sheet with her goal showing 57 seconds remaining, marking her game-best fifth goal and conference second-best 41^st goal through 13 games.

It was all five of those goals, married with Carroll’s three and Knowlton’s two that lifted the Colonels on Senior Day and Parker tried putting that effort into words after the game.

The senior players line up for photos with their families // IMAGE CREDIT COLE MCNANNA

“Honestly sometimes with us it’s just a spark, once one of us scores one nice goal everyone else just gets fired up,” remarked Parker. “Today was complete team effort, we started off playing a little individually but once we got that one goal, it turned everyone around and we started playing like a team then we got on fire.”

Carroll elaborated on that spark a little, noting the closeness of their bond.

“We’re like a family,” she said simply. “It’s so fun to be able to go out and play with your best friends and get the results you want to get.”

Coach Roberts was quick to note the connections as well, adding it was a long-time coming.

“This was the day they needed to, they haven’t all meshed all together the past couple games and the last two practices we worked solely on attack for them and they did it today, they finally played attack as a unit,” Roberts concluded.

There could have been no better stage for these players to make a difference in their final year and they will look to continue that success on Wednesday afternoon as Framingham State comes in for a 4 p.m. scheduled opening face-off.