KENOSHA, Wis. – While the rain dampened Senior Day for the Carthage College women's lacrosse team, the North Central College Cardinals spoiled it, coming into Art Keller Field and delivering a heartbreaking defeat to the Lady Reds in overtime on Saturday, 10-9.
 
The defeat drops the Lady Reds to 10-5 on the season and 4-2 in the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin, while the Cardinals improve to 13-4 and 4-2 in the CCIW.  Despite the loss, the Lady Reds had already secured the spot in next week's 2016 CCIW Tournament.
 
Carthage dominated from the center circle in the game controlling 15-of-21 draws in the match.  However 25 turnovers led to North Central outshooting the Lady Reds in the match 25-23 and 19-16 on target, dooming the Lady Reds.
 
North Central jumped on the Lady Reds early in the first half a pair of goals by Kassie Whaling that put the Cardinals up 2-0 with 9:01 gone in the first half.  Carthage answered with four straight goals from Maddie Griffith, Rachel Mussell and a pair from Kara Vana to give Carthage a 4-2 lead.  After two goals by NCC tied it once again at four, goals by Vana and Mussell once again gave Carthage a two goal lead with 1:50 remaining in the half which they took into the half at 6-4.
 
The Cardinals started the second half much like they did the first, going on a 3-0 run in the first 8:05 of the second half.  Mussell's third goal of the game once again tied the match at seven. 
 
From there is was back and forth the rest of regulation as Carthage kept having to play from behind by one and getting goals from Kendell Santin to tie it at eight and Griffith's second of the game with 15-seconds remaining in regulation to tie the match one final time at 9-9.
 
The joy however was short-lived for the Lady Reds as a Madison Maas' third goal of the match gave the Cardinals the 10-9 sudden-victory win 2:03 into the first overtime period.
 
Vana and Mussell finished with a hat-trick apiece and Vana added a pair of assists to lead all Carthage players with five points in the game. 
 
The loss also means Saturday was the final home game for seniors Maggie Potts, Taylor Sopron, Cody Tucker, Marissa Vavra and Elizabeth Wittenborg, as Carthage will have to hit the road in their first round game of the conference tournament as the number-four seeded Lady Reds will travel to the top-seeded Vikings of Augustana College next week.