Photo by Sarajoy Salib

LOS ANGELES — Alessandra Pelliccia scored five goals and Shai Goodman added three for the Tigers.

But despite a valiant comeback effort, the Occidental women's lacrosse team came up a little short against Pomona-Pitzer, falling 17-15 in the SCIAC Semifinal at Jack Kemp Stadium on Saturday.

Oxy finishes the season at 12-7 overall and 8-3 in SCIAC.

Pomona-Pitzer improves to 12-7, 6-5 in SCIAC and advances to the SCIAC Championship game at Claremont-Mudd-Scripps on May 5.

Oxy fell behind 12-6 early in the first half as Pomona-Pitzer took 6 of the first 9 draw controls to start the second half. Oxy called timeout, regrouped and began chipping away at the lead, cutting it to 16-15 with 4 minutes to play.

Pomona-Pitzer goalkeeper Annie Price was outstanding all game, saving 20 Oxy shots. She had two especially big deflections when Oxy had possession of the ball, looking to tie the game with 3 minutes. Her final save had her coming up with the ball and Oxy's Ciara Byrne was issued a yellow card on the clear, forcing the Tigers to play down a player with little time left on the clock.

The Sagehens used just about all of the 90 second shot clock and then rebounded their miss. On their next possession Isabel Schmidt earned and scored on a free position, giving Pomona-Pitzer a two-goal cushion.

Byrne finished with two goals and an assist, Sierra Slack had two goals, Lauren DiLella and Madisyn Hallare had a goal and an assist, Marie Whitmore had a goal and Elizabeth Andrews had an assist, rounding out Oxy's point scorers. 

Slack led Oxy with five draw controls and Ciara Byrne had four caused turnovers and four draw controls.

For Oxy it's a disappointing end to a very good season. The Tigers tied their best regular season record in program history, had four SCIAC Women's Lacrosse Player of the Week honors and four players make the All-SCIAC teams.