The Grand Valley State women’s lacrosse team needed every second of regulation and then some, to pull out the 23-21 win against Notre Dame College.

With only 33 seconds left in the game, Notre Dame’s Jill Dixon put the Falcons (4-8) up 19-18. However, that left too much time on the clock for junior Allyson Fritts and the Lakers (8-6).

Fritts would score the game-tying goal with only 14 seconds remaining to tie the game up at 19 and eventually send the game to overtime.

“To be honest, it was almost like I didn’t know what happened,” Fritts said. “I just knew I had to do what was best for my team, so I took it hard to the hole and pulled out the goal.”

In overtime, it was the Lakers who jumped out to the lead. Goals by freshmen Victoria Devine and Jordan Luberto gave GVSU a 22-20 lead. Fritts’ sixth goal of the match safely secured the Lakers’ 23-21 victory.

“That’s a fun one to coach,” said head coach Alicia Groveston. “It was a good environment to be in, the fans were wonderful and our kids really worked hard. Right now, we’re really seeing the character of our team and it was really exciting for us to see we were up and down, but we never completely fell over and we stayed in it and worked our butts off.

The Lakers trailed for much of the second half. Notre Dame outscored the Lakers 7-1 in the first 15:19 of the second half to take a 17-13 lead. But the Lakers eventually found the holes in the Notre Dame defense.

“Notre Dame ran a zone defense,” Groveston said. “The way to beat a zone is to constantly send cutters and find the open person, and we started to do that at the end of the game and in overtime.”

Throughout the entire game, GVSU maintained their composure when Notre Dame would make a run. A majority of the team is comprised of freshmen, but on this night, their inexperience wasn’t apparent.

“Our team showed incredible strength and maturity,” said freshman Audrey Kobe, who made 10 saves in goal. “For a team mainly of freshman, I think we played like seniors tonight. On senior night, there was no better way to represent our senior class than how we played tonight.”

The Lakers held a 40-35 shot advantage, while Notre Dame had a 26-20 draw advantage.

This was the last home game for the Lakers. The Lakers finished their innagural season 5-1 at the GVSU Lacrosse Stadium.

“It’s a wonderful experience,” Groveston said. “This facility is amazing and the fan support that we’ve had is outstanding. Just having it be senior night and their last game and our first team, and first seniors is just exciting. It’s the perfect storm, the perfect game and we just wanted to perform.”

GVSU will next be in action Friday at Lindenwood University, the team they opened their home schedule with in March.

[email protected]