Thanks to midfielder Madysyn Sweeney, who scored her second goal of the game, the Oregon women’s lacrosse team held its first lead with two minutes and 56 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter. The Ducks only needed to hold off the Arizona State Sun Devils’ strong offense for that long to secure their first Pac-12 win of the season.
The Oregon Ducks (5-7, 1-5 Pac-12) narrowly defeated the Arizona State Sun Devils (4-9, 3-5 Pac-12 ) 12-11 in an exciting conference game on Friday night at Papé Field.
This game started out with Arizona State making a commanding statement and scoring right away with momentum that Orgeon could not stop. At the end of the first quarter, the Sun Devils led by three and the Ducks put up no points and recorded half as many shots as their opponent.
The Arizona State offensive proved to be stronger than Oregon’s defense through much of the second quarter. With five minutes remaining, midfielder Morgan McCarthy scored the Ducks opening goal. Her much needed momentum did not stop there and she went on to secure a hat trick before the quarter ended.
The Ducks entered halftime trailing by four. Their lack of consistent scoring was due to the inability to keep possession of the ball in their offensive half.
In the second half, the Ducks managed to get control and their offensive momentum only went up from there. They continued to play aggressive and win the draws while playing disciplined, avoiding fouls. The energy switch put the Ducks in position to gain control of the game after two quick goals by McCarthy and Sweeney. At that point they still trailed by two.
With 10 minutes remaining in the third, defender Logan Gierke went down behind the goal and was eventually helped off the field by the training staff. With a strong presence in the back, the Ducks needed to maintain their offensive strides in order to hold off the Sun Devils.
Arizona State’s Mina Scott scored a goal in the possession immediately following Gierke’s exit. But, Oregon won the draw and attacker Gabby Cleveland answered with two goals in under two minutes bringing the score to 8-7 and forcing Arizona State into a timeout.
The third quarter proved to be the Ducks most important quarter where they had more shots on goal — 7 — than the Sun Devils. They were also stronger on draw controls which proved to lead to immediate offensive success.
The fourth quarter was when the Oregon offense needed to continue the offensive success it created in the third. The game reached peak excitement when attacker Alyssa Wright found the back of the net for the second time tying the game at 11. After Sweeney’s goal with 2:56 remaining, the Ducks kept their composure through a couple Sun Devil fouls to have possession of the ball with 1:30 left to make their victory official.
Coming off two home wins, Oregon will face USC (11-3, 6-1 Pac-12) at 12 p.m. for the final home game of 2023.