Spiders' late rally not enough to capture A10 title

The University of Richmond had cut the University of Massachusetts' lead from seven to four, and was in good position to get closer late in the game, but failed to do so in its 14-9 loss in Sunday's Atlantic 10 Conference tournament title game.

With about three minutes left in the game, senior Mary Flowers had the ball on a restart a few yards away from UMass goalie Katie Florence, but Flowers moved too early and the ball went back to the Minutewomen. The play took momentum away from Richmond, which had rallied from an 11-4 deficit early in the second half.

The Minutewomen, like they had done many times during the second half, took their time setting up their offense before scoring the final goal of the game. That sent the small section of UMass fans into an even wilder frenzy as it secured their fourth straight A10 title.

Thought the game was played at Robins Stadium, UMass was designated as the home team because of its No. 1 ranking. Massachusetts came into the game with a perfect conference record and its only loss coming against the No. 1 team in the nation, Northwestern.

Richmond hosted UMass on March 30 and lost by one in overtime. UMass made sure there would be no overtime this time around, scoring five of the game's first six goals.

It put an exclamation mark on a strong first half with a goal to make it 8-3 with 34 seconds left in the first half.

The loss ends the careers of four Richmond seniors, including standouts Caitlin Fifield and Flowers. Both had strong individual ends to their careers, with Fifield adding four goals and Flowers scoring twice and assisting three times.

Richmond, the three-seed in the A10 tournament, advanced to Sunday's finale after defeating Duquesne Friday afternoon. UMass will now host a play-in game with the winner of the Metro-Atlantic Conference tournament with the winner going to the NCAA tournament.

Contact reporter Andrew Prezioso at andrew.prezioso@richmond.edu