Cambridge, Mass. – April 30, 2025 – For the second consecutive season, MIT knocked the Springfield College women's lacrosse team out of the New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) Tournament Semifinals as the Engineers topped the Pride, 9-6, tonight on Jack Barry Field.

The second-seeded Engineers improved to 12-7 overall and will head to Babson Park for Saturday's NEWMAC title game, while third-seeded Springfield fell to 14-4 and will now have to wait for word of an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament when selections are announced on Monday morning.

Izzy Lalancette (Feeding Hills, Mass.) finished the day with three goals for Springfield, while Lily Johnson (Oceanside, N.Y.), Lily Vey (Foxboro, Mass.) and Payton Imhof (Bay Shore, N.Y.) accounted for the rest of the Pride's goals this evening. Lalancette also registered a team-best three caused turnovers and five ground balls. Meanwhile, Gwen Flusche and Annica Lam combined for five or MIT's nine goals tonight.

Springfield held a 26-25 edge in shots and a 12-10 differential in caused turnovers, while both programs scooped up 15 ground balls and were successful on the clear 15 times. In net, Pauline Vien stopped the ball 11 times for the Engineers, while Kate Laico (East Meadow, N.Y.) made seven saves for the Pride.

The two teams traded goals in first period with Lalancette scoring an unassisted strike on the power play with just two seconds remaining in the stanza to even the score at three. Lalancette was awarded a free position shot, missed, scooped up her own rebound and buried the game-tying goal – her 34th of the season.

MIT opened the second with three straight goals – one by Alexis Reinard on the man-advantage, one by Flusche on a free position shot and one by Lam playing a man down. But with 2:14 remaining before the break, Claire Ognibene (New Canaan, Conn.) and Johnson connected on the man-advantage to cut Springfield's deficit to two before Imhof buried a shot off a feed from Johnson to make the score 6-5 at halftime.

The two teams combined for just four goals in the second half – three of which came from MIT. The Engineers made it 7-5 on an Ashley Thomas strike before Flusche scored on the power play to push MIT's lead back to three at 8-5 through 45 minutes. Lalancette completed the hat trick for Springfield early in the fourth, but Nina Petulla registered MIT's third man-up goal of the night just minutes later for the 9-6 final.

In the NEWMAC Tournament, MIT is now 3-5 against Springfield with now back-to-back wins in the semifinal round. This was the first postseason meeting since 2017 when the home team won on its field when Springfield won 11-10 in the NEWMAC semifinal round on Stagg.

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