By Angelo Brussich, Assistant Sports Editor

The dam could not hold for the Hofstra women’s lacrosse team, finally cracking under constant pressure from defending Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) champion James Madison University.
The Pride gave JMU a surprising scare, but it was the Dukes who prevailed with a 10-9 victory. The loss knocked Hofstra out of the CAA championships and finished off an up and down season for the Pride.
“A couple more plays that we could’ve made, or a couple more mistakes that we shouldn’t have made,” said head coach Abby Morgan. “And there’s the game.”
Junior midfielder Jill Maier and senior goalie Jaclyn Pandolf lead the way for the Pride, as Maier scored two goals and Pandolf had nine saves and three ground balls in the contest.
“Jackie’s been fantastic, and again she was today,” said Morgan “There were a couple that she probably could’ve had but she can’t stand on her head every game…the shots that we allowed them to take she handled.”
The loss gives Hofstra a final record of 5-12, finishing out the season falling one goal short of a birth in the CAA championship game.
Hofstra jumped out of the gate the way one would expect an underdog, ferocious and trying to gain momentum. The Pride did just that scoring the first two goals of the contest, but its high was short lived as the Dukes came right back scoring four unanswered goals of its own.
Hofstra then came right back, taking the momentum of the game scoring the next four of five goals to head into the first half with a surprising 6-5 lead.
The Pride defense was strong all game, being able to keep the powerful JMU team relatively at bay.
“They played high pressure, they were spent, and they did a really good job,” said Morgan. “I think we had them on the ropes.”
The second half opened up with both teams standing toe to toe, trading goals as the Pride fought off every attempt by JMU to take the lead. For the first 20 minutes of the second half, Hofstra would answer each goal by the Dukes, allowing them to tie up the game but scoring to retake the lead.
Neither team would score anything for the next six and a half minutes until the Dukes finally broke the drought with 3:35 to play. Then a little more than a minute later Amy Rogusti of JMU would finally retake the lead with her third goal of the contest as Hofstra just could not hold off the Dukes attack. 
 

Junior midfielder Emily von Hollen (10) looking to make the right pass. (Cody Heintz/The Chronicle)