ST. BONAVENTURE, N.Y. — The St. Bonaventure women's lacrosse team secured a win in the 2024 season finale, 13-8, over VCU on Saturday afternoon at the Marra Athletics Complex. The program honored six seniors during Senior Day festivities prior to the game.
 
Fiona McGovern led the Bonnies offensive charge with seven points on the afternoon, the most by an SBU player this season. McGovern's three goals and four assists all came in the second half.
 
Bonaventure concludes their 2024 campaign with an 8-9 overall record and a 4-5 mark in A-10 play. St. Bonaventure misses out on making the Atlantic 10 Tournament for a second consecutive season based on a head-to-head tiebreaker with George Mason. The Bonnies tied for the final spot in the A-10 Tournament bracket, but come up short due to a head-to-head loss vs. the Patriots in Fairfax April 13 which hands George Mason the sixth and final seed in the conference playoffs.

Bona's eight wins on the season are the most for the program since 2007.
 
The Rams and the Bonnies both flexed their defensive muscle in the opening minutes of Saturday's matchup before Jessica Notaro opened up the scoring 10 minutes in to put SBU ahead, 1-0.
 
VCU (5-12, 4-5 A-10) answered in the final moments of the opening quarter and scored early in the second to grab their first lead of the game.
 
Notaro responded for the Brown and White with 9:06 remaining in the half, her second goal of the game, to deadlock the contest 2-2. 
 
The Rams tacked on a minute later and took a 3-2 lead to the halftime break after a scoreless eight minutes to close the quarter.
 
The Bonaventure offense came alive in the second half with McGovern kicking off the festivities at the 13:54 mark with a player-up strike.
 
Abby Hiltz, one of the six seniors honored before the game, found the back of the net 52 seconds later off a feed from McGovern to put the Bonnies up 4-3.
 
VCU tied it once again with 8:41 remaining in the stanza, but McGovern would put SBU up 5-4 two minutes later, giving the home Brown and White a lead they wouldn't relinquish for the remainder of the game.
 
The goal sparked a 5-0 Bonnies run to close out the third, with Kassi Hogan scoring twice, and Grace Hollenbeck and Notaro finding the back of the net once during the spurt.
 
VCU struck first in the fourth quarter, cutting the Bona's lead to 9-5, but once again the hosts had an answer, scoring the next three goals via Hiltz, Tori Nascimento and McGovern to hold a 12-5 lead with five minutes to play. 
 
After the Rams scored three in a row, Brooke Piper capped off the game with 20 seconds left, scoring her 33^rdof the season to make the final tally 13-8. 
 
The seven points posted Saturday pushes McGovern's total to 59 on the season. She sits ninth all-time in scoring in program history. Hiltz, who wraps her college career with 122 points, ranks 15^th in program history and fifth in assists all-time with 54.
 
SBU narrowly owned the draw control category over VCU on Saturday, 13-12, but won seven of the nine draws in the third quarter to spark their run. Piper led the way with seven draw controls on the afternoon with seven, while Megan Schillinger finished with four.
 
The duo wrapped the season with 68 and 64 draw controls respectively with Piper now holding the Bonaventure single-season record in the category. Schillinger sits tied for second in the single-season ranks with previous record-holder Courtney Gibbons, who had 64 in 2005.
 
The Bonnies outshot the Rams 33-28 on the day with Ashley Herrick making 11 stops for SBU in her final collegiate game.

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