WATERVILLE, Maine - April 29, 2015 - In another close game between the two teams, second seed Thomas College protected home field and defeated the Colby-Sawyer women's lacrosse team, 9-7 in Wednesday's North Atlantic Conference (NAC) semifinal game. 

The Terriers improve to 8-3 and will play at top seed Castleton for the NAC championship. The Chargers have their seven game win streak snapped and fall to 10-6. Colby-Sawyer will await announcement of this year's ECAC field early next week. 

Colby-Sawyer junior Caitlyn Whearty led the team with three goals. Early in the second half, Whearty scored a game-tying goal to give her 100 career points. Nichole Danehy and Carly Baker each notched an assist in the game to give them 31 career assists apiece ranking them tied for ninth all-time. 

Thomas jumped out to an early lead over Colby-Sawyer, scoring the first four goals of the game. Day wasted no time getting the Terriers on the board, scoring her first of the day just 1:15 in to action.

Only 53 seconds later, Premo would notch her first on the game as she drove at the net and fired a shot past Charger goalkeeper Meghan Castellano for the 2-0 lead. Toral Nelson got involved in the scoring action, as she collected a tip-pass from Jaclyn Hartwell and put it through for her fourth goal on the year.

With just over 15 minutes of the first half gone, Premo put home her second goal of the game with an assist from Day and Thomas got out to their biggest lead of the game at 4-0.

Colby-Sawyer began to chip away at the lead to close out the first half. Nicole Lavigne got them on the board at the 9:39 mark as she scored on a man advantage situation. The Chargers got a second goal quickly as Caitlyn Whearty scored just 46 seconds later and the Terrier lead was cut in half at 4-2.

Thomas ended the 2-0 Charger run when Samantha Greenlaw buried a shot past Castellano from the free-position. With another advantage, Colby-Sawyer took the opportunity and Whearty notched her second of the game to bring her team within two.

Day ended the half with her second goal, scoring unassisted to send the Terriers into the half up 6-3. Thomas held the advantage in shots, ground balls and draw controls in the first half.

The Chargers got off to a hot beginning in the second half, scoring three unanswered goals in a six minute span to tie the game up 6-6. Carly Baker recorded the first goal just 1:37 into the half, taking an assist from Nichole Danehy and getting it past Thomas goalkeeper Allie McCarthy. Baker would assist on the second Charger goal as she found Alyssia Janak for the score. Whearty would score her third of the game at 22:27 to tie the score up.

After a timeout taken by Thomas, the Terriers came out and responded, scoring two straight goals to jump back ahead by two. Day once again made a hard drive towards the net and put a shot up high for the goal and the lead. Greenlaw registered her second of the afternoon to make it a two-goal game with 18:35 remaining.

Colby-Sawyer pulled back within one after a Terrier foul set up Sara Berry with a free-position chance and she found the back of the net to bring the score to 8-7. Just over three minutes later, Premo received a terrific pass from Day and notched her third goal of the game to put Thomas back up two with just 11:15 to go. 

The Thomas defense held strong over the remaining 11 minutes of play to secure the 9-7 victory and their ticket to the NAC title game.

Day had a game-high six points on the afternoon, with three goals and three assists, while Premo also had three goals and Greenlaw had two. Sara Berry had game-highs of eight ground balls and seven caused turnovers for the Chargers. 

Sara Berry and Caitlyn Whearty were named to the NAC All-Tournament team for their efforts. 

McCarthy recorded nine saves in goal for Thomas to collect the win, and Castellano had three saves for Colby-Sawyer.