STEUBENVILLE – Franciscan battled until the final buzzer sounded but the Lady Barons were unable to get past Washington & Jefferson in the regular season finale, 12-8, Wednesday afternoon.

The Presidents opened the game with a 4-0 run over the first 14 minutes of the game. Sophomore Treise McCarthy halted the W&J run with Francsican's first goal of the game.  W&J answered with Rae Larochelle's second goal of the game before junior Mary Krolicki sandwiched a pair of goals around Monica Ewansik's third goal of the game to give the Presidents a 6-4 lead at halftime.

Ewansik opened the second half with her fourth of the game to push the W&J lead to 7-4 but Carly McDonald scored her first goal of the game with 18:53 to play as Elizabeth McEntee won the draw after Ewansik's goal and got the ball to Elaine Kelly. Kelly popped the ball to McDonald for her first tall to cut the lead down to 7-5. Caroline Kallos answered 29 seconds later to keep the lead to three goals.

After a six-minute drought, W&J pushed its lead to four goals for the first time as Kayla Boulas scored off a successful President clear at 12:40. Franciscan scored its first two back-to-back goals and McEntee and junior Elizabeth Dawyot scored within five minutes of each other to cut the lead down to 9-7.

Kallos and Ewansik scored on back-to-back free position shots to push the President lead back to four goals, 11-7, but Dawyot notched her second of the game with 2:33 to play to cut the lead down to three, 11-8.

Larochelle scored the game's final goal to bring the score to its final, 12-8, and wrap up Franciscan's regular season.

Sophomore Brittany Bain made eight saves while Franciscan won 12 of the 22 draw controls.

The Lady Barons will take this week off for practice before competing in the Inaugural AMCC championship game on May 7.