WEST LONGBRANCH, NJ – In it's regular season finale and season on the line, the Iona Lacrosse program (8-9, 3-5) was unable to upend Monmouth (8-9, 6-2), falling to Hawks 16-11 on a rainy Wednesday afternoon. Despite the defeat, Iona claimed the sixth seed in the MAAC Championship due to Manhattan falling to Fairfield 14-9 on Wednesday night. Iona will take on the No. 3 seed Stags at Fairfield on Saturday.
 
The seniors provided the offense for Iona, with nine goals coming from the veterans. Kaitlyn Becker tied her career-high with three goals on six shots and grabbed two ground balls. Pamela Giordano notched two goals on five shots and controlled five draws. Emma Hager connected on two goals and Katelyn Noschese and Jenna Tolzmann scored once. Maureen Murphy and Sara Stewart provided a tally each for the Gaels. Shannon McCaffrey started in net, making nine saves in the contest.
 
The Hawks outshot the Gaels 34-26 and controlled 15-28 draws.  The teams were even in turnovers (17) and ground balls (21). Iona was successful on 13-19 clears and were unsuccessful on two free-position shots.
 
The Hawks scored the first goal of the game 48 ticks in, but Murphy answered just 20 seconds later to knot the score at 1-1. Hager followed with her 11^th tally of the year off a feed from Noschese to put the Gaels ahead for three minutes until the Hawks tied the score at 2-2. After Tolzmann put Iona back ahead, the Hawks rattled off four unanswered goals over the next 12 minutes as the Gaels found themselves in a 6-3 hole.
 
The game of runs continued with Iona scoring the next three. Becker scored her 14^th goal of the season with 9:00 to play in the half and Giordano notched her two scores of the game to even the score at 6-6 with 6:02 remaining in the half. After two Monmouth scores, Noschese found Hager who put one past the Monmouth goalkeeper to bring Iona back within one. The Hawks beat the buzzer to go ahead two, 9-7 at the break.
 
Noschese continued her strong game scoring the first goal of the second half, off a dish from Becker, but Monmouth scored the next four over an 11-minute span to increase the deficit to 13-8. Stewart stopped the run off a feed from Tolzmann with 15:13 to play to pull Iona back within four, but Monmouth scored three more unanswered goals to go up 16-9. Becker completed her hat-trick, scoring two goals within 30 seconds of one another. Both teams were held off the scoresheet for the final 7:31 of play.