The Maritime College women's lacrosse team is off to it's best start to the Skyline Conference season in program history as they improved to 3-0 with a 9-8 win over St. Joseph's Long Island on Friday night. The Privateers win marked the program's first ever against the Golden Eagles, and their first two wins of the year came against USMMA and Manhattanville, both of which earned convincing wins over Maritime in the 2019 season, the last time they played.

"I'm really proud of the way the team played tonight," said head coach Kerri Handras. "They knew it was a big game playing against St. Joseph's since we've never beaten them before so it was a huge win for our program and coming out with the 9-8 win at the end was just a great team win."

The game began as a defensive struggle, with both teams receiving limited opportunities to find the back of the net. With just under 24 minutes remaining in the half, Nicole Johnson (Farmingville, NY/Sachem East) scored the first goal for the Privateers off an assist from Avery Jillson Neuwirth (Croton on Hudson, NY). Later in the half, Jillson Neuwirth was involved in back-to-back goals for Maritime, assisting on the first to Mackenzie Fabiani (Bayport, NY/Bayport Blue Point) and scoring the next unassisted. Unfortunately, the Privateers couldn't hold onto their 3-2 lead in the waning seconds of the first half and the Golden Eagles tied the game at 3-3 with 11 seconds left.

After trading goals early in the second half, Maritime found themselves trailing 5-4 with under 20 minutes left to play. However, that's when the Privateers offense stepped up in a big way as they scored four of the next five goals to take an 8-6 advantage with 7:28 left to play. Highlighting the offensive run was two impressive goals scored by the Maritime offense, the first being a Nicole Johnson (Farmingville, NY/Sachem East) goal as the shot clock expired with a great pass across the net by Sarah Malone (Calvert County, MD/Calvert). The other highlight play came from the stick of senior attacker Mackenzie Fabiani (Bayport, NY/Bayport Blue Point) who made a great individual effort for an unassisted goal with 7:28 left on the clock. Three minutes later, an unassisted goal from Sara Wright (East Islip, NY/East Islip) proved to be the game winner. The Golden Eagles made it a one goal game with 1:07 left, but a huge draw control from Wright sealed the game and Maritime ran out the clock.

Johnson led the scoring effort with four goals, while Jillson Neuwirth also chipped in four points on two goals and two assists. Wright led the team with five draw controls while Elizabeth Pomaro (Farmingville, NY/Newfield) earned her third win in net with a game-high 11 saves.

The Privateers now sit at the top of the Skyline Conference at 3-0 along with Farmingdale St. Maritime will host Mount Saint Mary on Monday, April 12th at 7:00 p.m. before traveling to the Rams on the 16th for a 6:00 p.m. start.