WLAX mastered by Bates College 15-23

John LaPierre

He/Him

Staff Writer

3/23/24

On Wednesday evening, The Plymouth State Panthers welcomed nonconference opponent Bates College to campus. The Panthers entered the contest with an overall record of 3-2 and a 0-0 record in the Little Eastern Conference. Meanwhile, Bates was struggling coming in with an overall record of 2-4 record and a 0-3 record in the New England Small College Athletic Conference. 

Bates opened up the game on the scoring sheet first coming from Caroline Ruggart at 13:06. One minute later at 12:07, Laci Raveis extended Bates’ lead to two. After going four minutes without scoring, Plymouth’s Ellie Moshier gets the Panthers on the board at 11:30. The opportunities were there for both teams to fire on all cylinders. Tarryn O’Brien scores for the Panthers at 10:50 to tie the game up for the Panthers. Bate’s Caroline Keating scored to keep the Bobcats up one at 8:03.

 Little did the Panthers know that the first period would be a high-scoring affair. Morgan Cunningham kept the Panthers in the game at 7:15. The Bobcats weren’t going down that easy as Lucy Taylor scored at 6:35 to keep the game close. But neither were the Panthers surrounding, as star offensive player Julia Donovan scores her first goal of the game off a rocket of a shot on a free possession shot as well as a man-up goal at 6:02. A minute later, she’s back at it Donovan notches her second at 5:38 for her twenty-fourth goal of the year. Maddie Hunt gives the Panthers their first lead of the game at 3:15. Sadie O’Neil of Bates scores late in the period for her first of the game at 1:58. Jenna Stowell got a late goal in the period to try to keep the Panthers inches in this game. 

The scoring frenzy scattered over into the second period as well. The Bobcats struck first once again with a goal coming from O’neil at 13:33. Her teammate Emma Austin notched another one for the Bobcats to little by little extend the lead at 12:27. O’Brien for the Panthers gets the Panthers one at 11:33. Donovan notched her hat trick in the second with once again a rocket of a shot on yet again a free possession goal at 11:20. Bate’s wasn’t going away, and Taggart notched her second at 10:43. Donovan continued her offensive dominance with her fourth goal of the game at 10:16 which gave the Panthers ten goals total in the game with ten minutes still left until the half. Cunningham of the Panthers gets her second of the game at 9:03. Lauren Wong of Bates would begin her scoring of the day at 7:02. Speaking of Wong, she scored her second just three minutes later at 4:24 on a man-up. 

Coming out of halftime, for the third period the Panthers got on the board first with a goal coming from O’Brien at 14:27. O’Neil continued her spectacular day with another goal at 13:37. Raveis notches her second of the game at 7:52. The Bobcats would score three straight coming from Austin 10:54, Taggart 8:48, and Raveis for her hat trick at 7:52. Hunt for Plymouth notched her second at 2:00 on a man up. O’Brien tallied her fourth at 1:28. Taggart for the Bobcats recorded her fifth goal of the contest at 0:55. 

Wong kicked off the fourth period scoring at 13:13. Amelia Thomas scored the lone goal for the Panthers in the fourth at 11:03. Hanna Matthews got on the score sheet for the first time for the Bobcats at 9:16. O’Neil tallied her fourth at 8:02. Matthews scored her second of the game at 7:36. Julia Roelofs got on the board for the Bobcats at 5:48. To end it all off, Matthews notched her hat trick with ten seconds left in the game. For a majority of the game, it was a back-and-forth affair. The Panthers gave everything they had in the tank. 

Star attackmen Julia Donovan had this to say about Bate’s fast-paced offense “They came out after halftime fired up and you could tell right off the bat when they scored. We let them get on a hot streak and with a team like Bate’s you can’t let them get that momentum. We have such a great defense group but Bate’s did find the little cracks in our defense and emphasized on those. We also should have executed better on attack when our defense made a great stop. But we are still learning and we learned a ton from this game.” 

She also added that “this is the best we’ve competed with a NESCAC team in a while and we were proud of that as a whole.”

Coming up for the Panthers, they will travel to non-conference opponent the University of New England on Saturday, March 23rd for a 1:00 pm tip-off.