PREVIEW: Women's Soccer to Host No. 4 St. Joe's Maine in GNAC Semifinal

NEWTON, Mass. -- The Lasell College women's soccer team looks to continue its Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC) postseason dominance on Wednesday afternoon as fourth-seeded St. Joseph's College of Maine visits Taylor Field for a 2:00 p.m. semifinal contest.

The top-seeded Lasers took care of business in Sunday afternoon's quarterfinal, scoring a 2-0 win over No. 8 University of St. Joseph (Conn.) to extend their winning streak to 16 games. Lasell is 16-2-1 on the season, and now ten of its wins have come in shutout fashion.

Junior goalkeeper Sarah LaClair (Belchertown, Mass.) and the Lasell defense shut out the Blue Jays in both meetings this season as their Oct. 1 regular-season contest also finished with a 2-0 score. USJ's season ended at the hands of Lasell last fall as well, but it took eight rounds of penalty kicks for the Lasers to earn the victory in the semifinal round.

Now, the Lasers turn their attention to the fourth-seeded Monks, who earned a 3-1 win over No. 5 Simmons to open postseason play. SJC is 10-6-3 on the season and finished 6-2-3 in conference.

Senior Megan Cullen (Amesbury, Mass.) provided all the offense Lasell would need in its playoff opener, scoring a goal in each half to singlehandedly eliminated USJ. In net, LaClair stopped all three shots on goal she faced in the quarterfinal, lowering her goals-against average to 0.58.

Cullen was held pointless through her first five games this season, but now sits tied for the GNAC lead with 20 goals and 44 points. The two-time GNAC Player of the Week has posted 28 points in a five-game scoring streak, including nine in the Lasers' 5-2 win over SJC on Oct. 22. Lasell's win over the Monks during the regular season clinched the top seed.

While junior Carly Zdanek (Newton, N.J.) leads the GNAC with eight assists, two different players got in on the offense against USJ as junior Casey Meissner (Sandwich, Mass.) and sophomore Sabrina Morais (Arlington, Mass.) set Cullen up for goals. Meissner is one of Lasell's six double-digit point scorers, with 14 on the year.

The Lasers' last blemish was a 1-1 tie with Johnson & Wales on Sept. 10, but the second-seeded Wildcats are no longer in the GNAC's postseason picture after No. 7 Suffolk posted a 2-1 upset victory Sunday night in Providence. Lasell's only losses have come in non-conference play, to Brandeis and Keene State.

The Monks broke a six-game postseason losing streak that dated back to 2009 on Sunday, and reached the ten-win mark for the 19th time in the program's 29-year history.

Sophomore Haley DaGraca (Saco, Maine) led the Monks with two goals, while junior Sarah Comtois (Lowell, Mass.) ― the team's second-leading scorer with 18 points ― added the final tally. DaGraca's 20 goals and 43 points in just 17 games rank second in SJC's single-season record books.

As a team, St. Joe's ranks second to Lasell in the GNAC in shots per game by a 25.7-20.0 margin. However, the Lasers have scored 59 goals on the season as compared to the Monks' 42.

The Monks have started sophomore goalkeeper Brooke Troup (East Bridgewater, Mass.) in all but two of their 19 contests. Troup has posted three shutouts on the season and ranks fifth in the conference with a 1.44 goals-against average.

No. 3 Albertus Magnus will host Suffolk in the other conference's other semifinal after the Falcons earned a 1-0 win over Emmanuel on Sunday. The championship match will be played on Saturday, November 5.

Wednesday's contest can be viewed live at https://portal.stretchinternet.com/lasell/.