Mercer women’s lacrosse team set for A-Sun tournament debut

With a minute-and-a-half on the clock, the Mercer women’s lacrosse team was down by one against Stetson. In one swift motion, midfielder Lindsey Zeltwanger checked one of Stetson’s players, and Tori Blakeman got a ground ball.

The Bears cleared the ball down the field and called a time out.

“It’s very hard with a minute-and-a-half to have the maturity and leadership out there to not freak out and to realize that we have plenty of time,” Mercer head coach Samantha Eustace said.

Mercer scored, and with just four seconds left, the Bears scored again and won 11-10 a key game last month. In just their second season, the Bears are headed to the A-Sun tournament for the first time as the fifth seed. The tournament is being played in Kennesaw, and Mercer opens against Detroit Mercy at 1 p.m. on Thursday.

“We had a couple pivotal wins that we needed to make it into the tournament,” Eustace said.

Mercer went 7-10, including 4-4 in conference play, and had several impressive individual performances. Goalkeeper Haleigh Wurzel leads the country in total saves (201) and saves per game (11.82), while Meghan Segreti has reached 100 draws in just two years.

“She’s really been pivotal for us,” Eustace said.

Zeltwanger has 30 goals and 27 assists, and Eustace is hopeful that she will reach 30 assists during Thursday’s game, making her one of only a handful in Division I to reach 30 in both stats.

“Especially for a program like ours, we’re not a top-ranked program, so we can build stats up against weaker teams,” Eustace said.

Eustace said the team is excited for a rematch against Detroit Mercy after a 14-11 loss in April.

“It’s nice to get a second crack at teams in your conference when you feel like you could have played better the first time around,” Eustace said.

This story was originally published May 4, 2016 at 5:10 PM with the headline "Mercer women’s lacrosse team set for A-Sun tournament debut."