MACON, Ga. – The Coastal Carolina women's lacrosse team fell to the Mercer Bears in the Southern Conference Women's Lacrosse Championship semifinals on Thursday evening in Macon, Ga. With the loss, the Chanticleers' season comes to an end at 10-7 while the Bears improved 6-7 and move to the championship game on Saturday, May 8.
 
Junior Megan Bozzi led the Chants' offensive attack with a career-high five goals while graduate student Samantha Courtemanche tallied one goal and four assists for five points. The duo of Kayla Downey and Lauren Cremen had two goals apiece with Downey adding three assists.
 
Mercer's Hailey Rhatigan led the Bears' attack with 10 points on six goals and four assists while Eva Thorn and Lily Morin each tallied two goals.
 
The Bears opened the contest with the first goal of the contest as Rhatigan scored the unassisted goal with 2:17 expiring from the game clock to give the Bears a 1-0 lead that they would not relinquish. Just under three minutes later (24:45), Morin pushed the advantage to 2-0 as Rhatigan found her teammate in front of the crease for the wide-open goal.
 
CCU answered with 23:10 remaining in the first half as Courtemanche filled the back of the net off a Downey assist to cut the Mercer lead in half at 2-1.
 
Mercer ran off three unanswered goals to push the lead to 5-1 as Shannon Urey started the run pushing the lead to 3-1 off Rhatigan's second assist of the contest with 20:33 left in the first half. Chloe Schaeffer tallied the unassisted goal for the 4-1 advantage with 19:39 until the intermission while Rhatigan scored her second goal of the contest with 16:34 remaining until halftime for the four-goal 5-1 lead.
 
Coastal's Avery Drouin cut the lead to 5-2 with 15:43 left in the first half before the Bears' Thorn pushed the advantage back to four goals at 6-2. With 10:57 left until the break, Bozzi stepped up with her first goal off the Courtemanche assist as the Chants trailed 6-3.
 
The Bears used the play clock and game clock to their advantage as Thorn scored her second goal of the contest with 7:39 left until halftime for the 7-4 lead.
 
The Chanticleers' closed the first half with three straight goals of their own as Downey tickled the net with her first goal of the game with 6:35 left in the first half. Bozzi tallied the hat trick with the junior from Linwood, N.J. finishing the first-half scoring with an unassisted goal (5:51) and another goal from Courtemanche's third assist (1:20) for the halftime score of 7-6.
 
Mercer opened the second-half scoring with help from Rhatigan who had a hand in all six second-half goals for the Bears. The midfielder tallied the first goal of the second half for an 8-6 lead with 27:39 left in the contest.
 
CCU's Cremen sandwiched three Mercer goals as the redshirt sophomore cut it to 8-7 off another Downey assist. The Bears Rhatigan followed with back-to-back assists as Morin (24:16) and Erin Degnan (19:11) scored to give the Bears a 10-7 lead before Rhatigan pushed the lead to 11-7 with a goal of her own with 16:58 left to play. The duo of Cremen and Downey teamed up a second time to cut Mercer's advantage to 11-8 with 13:38 on the game clock.
 
The Bears' Rhatigan (9:42, 6:48) sandwiched Bozzi's fourth goal of the game to make it 13-9 with time running out on the Chanticleers.
 
Coastal closed out the scoring for the final 13-11 score as Bozzi finished her career night with her fifth goal of the contest with 6:03 remaining to play as CCU trailed 13-10. With 4:41 remaining on the clock, Downey cut the lead to two goals off an assist by Courtemanche.
 
For complete coverage of CCU women's lacrosse, follow the Chants on social media @CoastalWLax (Twitter), facebook.com/CCUChanticleers (Facebook), @GoCCUSports (Instagram) or visit the official home of Coastal Carolina Athletics at www.GoCCUsports.com.