thanks to Daniel Supraner, Assistant Director of Athletic Communications – Florida Tech Athletics for this press release   Panthers come up short, but show improvement in first road game of season BELMONT, N.C. (Women’s Lacrosse) – Florida Tech (4-5) dropped a close contest against a talented Belmont Abbey (6-3) squad on Saturday at Alumni Field. The Panthers trailed throughout but were always in striking distance in the 15-12 loss to the Crusaders. Freshman Mary Gormley had one of her best performances of the season, pacing the Crimson and Gray with three goals and a season-high four assists. Fellow freshman Sara Grenier and sophomore Allie Modica each finished with a hat trick, while graduate student Katie Reid added two goals in the loss. Belmont Abbey started the scoring early when Shanin Darley found Kassie Easter for the goal just 18 seconds after the opening draw. FIT tied it up at 1-1 with a goal by Grenier off a nice feed from sophomore Heather Roache, but the Crusaders answered with tallies by Easter and Rebecca Stromberg to take a two-goal advantage. Both teams went on to score four goals to head into halftime with Belmont Abbey leading 7-5. The Crusaders opened the second half with three consecutive goals to increase their lead to 10-5. Florida Tech responded with five of the next seven goals, including two each by Reid and Gormley, to cut Belmont Abbey’s advantage to just two with 10:14 remaining. However, the Crusaders answered with two goals by Rebecca Luca and Easter to push the game out of reach and hand the Panthers their third consecutive loss. Factoring into the loss for FIT was the team’s inability to obtain possession off draws. The Panthers controlled only five of the game’s 28 draws allowing the Crusaders to take advantage of several make-it-take-it opportunities. “Again we suffered losses on the draw control,” said head coach Corinne Desrosiers. “Winning 5-of-28 draws does not bode well for a good outcome.” Despite the deficit in draw controls, Florida Tech kept itself in the game because of the pressure it imposed on the Belmont Abbey attackers. The Panthers’ pressure forced their opponent into 22 turnovers as well as 22 fouls called against the Crusaders. “We caused a lot of turnovers today and our defense played pretty well,” said Desrosiers. “After our last game, we made it our objective to focus on creating more turnovers and forcing our opponents into more fouls. We did a great job of that today.” Florida Tech also capitalized on its free possession opportunities, scoring on 3-of-5 attempts while limiting the Crusaders to just 1-of-6 on their attempts. “We are holding ourselves to a high standard,” stated Desrosiers. “Matching up against these established teams and pushing for the win. What we sometimes forget is that this is year one and we are still only losing one or two-goal games. We are right there. It’ll come with continued hard work and having fun every day. We need to build our chemistry. It’s not just figuring out how each of us, individually, can play but also how our teammates can too. It’s a lot and we’re excited to keep moving forward.” The Panthers hit the road again for Young Harris, Georgia for a matchup with Young Harris College on Saturday at 1 p.m. Live coverage, if available, can be found at FloridaTechSports.com.   Box Score: http://www.floridatechsports.com/media/2014-15/wlacrosse/stats/fitw09.htm 2015 Schedule: http://www.floridatechsports.com/wlacrosse/schedule/ 2015 Roster: http://www.floridatechsports.com/wlacrosse/roster/   Daniel Supraner Assistant Director of Athletic Communications Florida Tech Athletics 150 W. University Blvd. Melbourne, Fla. 32901 Work: 321-674-7484 Fax: 321-984-8529