No. 18 Rollins Pulls Away Late at Belmont Abbey

Battling the cold, the 18^th-ranked Tars remained perfect on the young season on Thursday afternoon, defeating Belmont Abbey, 17-10, on the road.

With the win, Rollins improves to 2-0 while the Crusaders fall to 0-1. The Tars outshot Belmont Abbey 31-15 for the game, including 13-6 in the second half.

Angelica Perdomo, Kristina Coppolino and Tyler Thomas all recorded hat tricks in the win with senior Ginevra Czech adding two scores and a career high three assists. Coppolino also had team highs in ground balls and draw controls with five of each.

MacKenzie Miller led the Crusaders with three goals while Katy Connery collected a game high 10 ground balls to go along with a pair of scores.

In goal, Malorie Olin and Hannah Ricci combined for three saves with Olin getting the start before Ricci came in to play the final 37-plus minutes.

The Tars jumped out to an early 2-0 lead less than a minute and half into the game after goals by Perdomo and Alley Rhinehart before Belmont Abbey answered with two scores of their own to tie the score at 2-2 with 27:36 left in the first half.

Ty. Thomas then gave Rollins a 3-2 before the Crusaders came back with two more to take their first lead at 4-3 with 22:03 on the clock.

The Tars then rattled off four unanswered scores by four different players to take a three-goal advantage at 7-4 with 11:21 left in the period.

The two teams traded goals over the final 11 minutes of the half, sending the game to halftime with Rollins leading 9-6.

The back and forth play continued out of the break as the score moved to 11-8 after a Coppolino score off an assist from Rhinehart with 22:44 left to play.

Ty. Thomas then extended the Rollins lead to 12-8 before the Crusaders came back with a pair of goals to cut the Tars lead to two just over halfway through the second period.

That was as close as Belmont Abbey would come as Coppolino's third with 10:42 left in the game began a streak of five unanswered Rollins goals to close out the game in a final of 17-10. Perdomo scored twice during the 5-0 run including the exclamation point with just over a minute remaining.

The Tars will now quickly turn around and travel to Lenoir-Rhyne on Sunday, Feb. 15 to close out the road trip. Game time is set for 1 p.m.