BABSON PARK, Mass.—The Smith College lacrosse team rebounded from an early deficit to pull within three goals, but could not complete the comeback in a 20-13 New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) defeat to Babson College on Saturday afternoon.

With its second straight win Babson moved to 6-5 overall and 2-1 in the NEWMAC while Smith drops to 3-10 overall in 0-4 in conference play.

Sophomore Jessica Lillquist (East Lyme, Conn./East Lyme) scored a team-high five goals for Smith while first-year Rachel Silveria (Dunstable, Mass./Groton-Dunstable) added three goals and an assist, and junior Petru Bester (Deep River, Conn./Valley Regional) chipped in with a pair of tallies.

Senior Jameson Spang scored four times, junior Misha Beatty and first-year McKenzie Tucci each had two goals apiece, and first-year Kayla Farina chipped in with a goal and a career-high three assists as the Beavers scored 20 goals for the second consecutive game.

Babson got off to a quick start as Spang scored twice in the opening minute of the game and Secrist followed with her first goal of the day to take a 3-0 lead just 1:56 into the first half. Silveria got the Pioneers on the board at the 27:49 mark before the Beavers ripped off four consecutive goals in a 5:10 span to take their biggest lead of the half, 7-1, with 18:36 to play.

After trading goals, Silveria scored on back-to-back free position attempts just 13 seconds apart, and Lillquist followed a Kralovenec goal with a pair of scores, cutting the Babson lead to 9-6 with 6:55 left in the first half. The margin remained three until the final 40 seconds of the period when Secrist twice converted turnovers into goals, just beating the horn with her second goal, to give Babson a 12-7 lead at the half.

Smith got within four on two occasions early in the second half before the Beavers put together a four-goal run to put the game out of reach. Tucci netted her first goal of the day and Spang converted a feed from Kralovenec to take a 15-9 lead with 16:55 remaining. Just over two minutes later Spang and Tucci struck again, scoring 32 seconds apart to give the Beavers their biggest lead of the game at 17-9 with 14:02 to go in the game.

Junior Julie Baharestani made 10 saves for Babson, which held a 52-27 advantage in shots. Junior Savannah Lawson (Oak Bluffs, Mass./Martha's Vineyard) stopped a season-high 21 shots for Smith and held the Beavers without a free-position score in six chances.

Kralovenec and junior Meghan Andrew shared game-high honors with four groundballs apiece, while Spang collected a team-high nine draw controls for Babson. Silveria led the Pioneers with nine draw controls and four groundballs.

Both teams will be back in action on Tuesday as Babson heads to Wheaton for a 4:00pm start while Smith hosts Mount Holyoke at 4:30pm.

(Parts of the story courtesy Babson Sports Information)