Four Temple lacrosse sophomores combined for six goals, three assists and 12 saves in leading the Owls (5-3) to an 8-4 win over city rival La Salle (2-4) in the final non-conference game of the season. It was a defensive battle all game long, with sophomore Maryn Lowell coming up big in the cage with 13 saves. Keys to the Game > Both goalkeepers posted impressive numbers, as La Salle's Lynne Frankel recorded 12 saves to Lowell's 13. > Shots were nearly even, favoring La Salle 30-28, but the Owls put 20 of their shots on goal compared to 17 for the Explorers. > Neither team scored for the first eight minutes before La Salle struck first and held a 1-0 lead for close to seven minutes. Once the Owls scored, they never trailed again. Individual Highlights > Sophomore Meghan Hoffman led Temple with two goals and two assists, while sophomore Olivia Thompson also scored twice and tallied one assist. > Temple got two more goals from sophomore Maddie Gebert, and one goal apiece from senior Toni Yuko and freshman Bridget Whitaker. > Senior Nicole Latgis aided Lowell's defensive efforts in a big way, recording a game-high six ground balls along with team-highs in draw controls (four) and caused turnovers (two). Game Summary > Yuko got the Owls on the board with 15 minutes left in the first. Hoffman's first goal followed at 11:13, and Temple remained in the lead the rest of the way. > Both teams scored in the final two minutes of the first half, and Temple's lead was just 3-2 at the break. > Temple opened the second half with two goals for a 5-2 advantage, but the teams played scoreless lacrosse for the next 15 minutes. > The Owls got their first goal from Gebert with 8:35 left for their largest lead of 6-2 before the Explorers made things interesting. > In a span of less than 40 seconds, La Salle put two goals in the cage to cut the deficit to 6-4 with 4:43 to go. > Gebert gave the Owls some cushion with her second goal at 3:07, and Whitaker scored Temple's only free-position goal of the game in the final seconds. Quotable > "It never fails that La Salle is always a really tough game for us. It's a battle between Philadelphia schools. I thought they were tenacious and really solid in closing all the spaces on defense and we had a really hard time finding our scoring opportunities...it took a lot of going after it, tenacity and stick-to-it-ness to just keep finding a way to put the ball in the net." "I was really happy with how our defense played today. I thought we closed our double teams pretty well, Maryn made some huge saves and they were big momentum changers. Nicole, as always, caused turnovers all over the place. The defense gave the offense the extra chances that we needed today, for sure."