PITTBURGH – The Duquesne lacrosse team used a big third quarter to get past La Salle 19-8 Sunday afternoon on Senior Day at Rooney Field.
 
The Dukes (4-9, 1-5 A-10) were led by a four-goal effort from Julie Cassidy (Medford, N.J./Shawnee). Sam King (Newburyport, Mass./Newburyport), Delaney Rodriguez-Shaw (Longmeadow, Mass./Longmeadow) and Tina St. Clair (West Chester, Pa./Rustin) each tallied three goals.
 
Alana Piano (Brockport, N.Y./Aquinas) chipped in two goals with career highs of seven caused turnovers and seven ground balls to go with six draw controls.
 
The Dukes opened up a 2-0 lead early in the game, but La Salle (4-10, 2-4 A-10) managed to tie the score up with two-straight of their own. A St. Clair goal near the five-minute mark of the opening quarter pushed the Dukes to a 3-2 lead at the end of the period.
 
Duquesne rebuilt its lead to 5-3 on goals by Cassidy and Rodriguez-Shaw six minutes into the second quarter. La Salle answered back again, netting two-straight to send the game into halftime deadlocked at 5-5.
 
The Dukes owned the third quarter of play. Duquesne scored eight-straight goals to open the period and build a 13-5 lead with 6:07 on the clock, before eventually carrying a 14-8 lead into the fourth quarter.
 
The Dukes kept adding to their lead in the fourth quarter. Duquesne scored four-straight goals, including a woman-down goal, to race away from the Explorers for the team's first A-10 win of the season.
 
Duquesne out-shot the Explorers 39 to 25 and forced La Salle into 27 turnovers. The Dukes turned the ball over 18 times.
 
Duquesne was perfect on 27 clear attempts, compared to the 19 of 26 showing for the Explorers.
 
Mady Piersielak (Fairport, N.Y./Fairport) made eight saves in net to earn the win.
 
Prior to the opening draw control, the Dukes along with President Gormley, Vice President of Athletics Dave Harper and members of the administrative staff honored the team's eight senior student athletes for their contributions to the program.