FAIRFIELD, Conn. – ­After remaining practically level with the Wildcats for the majority of the first half, the Sacred Heart women's lacrosse team was outscored 12-2 in the second half and dropped their season opener to New Hampshire by a final score of 16-5. SCORE New Hampshire 16 / Sacred Heart 5 RECORDS Sacred Heart (0-1) / New Hampshire (1-1) LOCATION Campus Field / Fairfield, CT First Half (4-3 UNH) Defense dominated large stretches of the first half, with just five combined goals scored for the opening 23+ minutes Sacred Heart managed to find some offense off the sticks of Sydney Ericson and Hanna Wise as the pairing combined for the opening two goals of the season for the Pioneers Freshman Caroline Wax later notched her first career goal in her first career game with 6:25 left in the first half to tie the score at 3-3 However, the Wildcats managed to reclaim the lead with just eight seconds remaining in the half as Rylee Leonard found the back of the net off a free position strike Making her SHU debut, freshman Shana Hecht was the best player on the field in the first half as the freshman goalkeeper made eight saves on 12 shots-on-goal (66.7 save percentage) Second Half (16-5 UNH) Despite the strong start to the game, SHU was dominated in the second half with the Wildcats outscoring the Pioneers 12-2 over the final 30 minutes of play The tone was set early as UNH got two goals from Devan Miller before Michele Smith found the back of the net to open a four-goal advantage Freshman Lydia Werlau became the second Pioneer rookie to score in their debut as she notched a free position tally with 24:41 remaining to close the gap to 7-4 The Werlau tally, however, wasn't enough to turn the tide as the Wildcats scored nine of the final 10 goals of the game including five straight to make it 12-4 with just 11:49 remaining Shot totals (19-5) and turnovers (10-3) clearly favored UNH and helped determine the final deficit NOTES Wise, a 33-goal scorer a season ago, led the Pioneer offense with three goals in the 2019 season opener Wise's hat trick is the ninth in her 29-game career Hecht was peppered throughout the second half and finished the game with 16 saves in her debut The 16-save total is the highest single-game save total for SHU since recording 16 back on March 21, 2015 at La Salle (59 games ago) The last time SHU recorded more than 16 saves in a game came back on March 30, 2012 with a 17-save outing against Monmouth (103 games ago) Hecht even added a game-high four ground balls and added one caused turnover while playing all 60 minutes in the cage Ericson finished with two assists while Taylor Sweeney added one for the Pioneers Werlau scored her first career goal and added a team-high three draw controls Elizabeth Small led the defensive effort for the home side, recording three ground balls and a game-high three caused turnovers to go along with two draw controls UNH won the game in large part to their dominance in several key stat categories as the Wildcats were a perfect 21-for-21 on clear attempts, won the turnover battle 26-13, posted a 10+ margin in ground balls (26-16), outshot the Pioneers 33-15 (19-5 in the second half alone) and went 5-for-7 on free position shot attempts NEXT GAME The Pioneers look to shake the loss off on Wednesday with the Pioneers set to take on Monmouth from Campus Field with the game set to begin at 3 PM.