Jack Morgan | staff writer

The Duquesne lacrosse team fell short of completing a three-goal second-half comeback on Wednesday afternoon and dropped an 11-10 decision to Robert Morris at Rooney Field.

The Dukes were playing their first home game and second game overall of 2025 after a 12-11 overtime win at Akron on Saturday. The loss means that Duquesne has now dropped four straight against its Pittsburgh-area rivals, in four games dating back to March of 2017.

Mackenzie Leszcynski netted a game-high 5 goals for the Dukes in the contest. Leszcynski is the catalyst for the Dukes’ offense, scoring 103 goals in her first three seasons, including the OT winner on Saturday. She is also third all-time in the Duquesne record books for draw controls with 162.

Despite Leszcynski’s performance, the Colonials’ balanced attack prevailed in the end. Vivian LaMange, Samantha Brothers and Mia Berthoff scored 2 goals apiece in the win for RMU.

The first quarter only featured two goals, with Duquesne’s Chelsea Evans’ third goal of the year being matched a minute later by RMU’s Amanda Dolis. After taking a 3-2 lead in the second, Duquesne proceeded to give up four unanswered goals in just 2:27. They did, however, roar back with a 3-0 spurt with two goals from Leszcynski to tie things up at six going into halftime.

Duquesne had to climb out of another three-goal hole, as RMU opened up the third quarter with goals from Dolis and both Eliana and Vivian LaMange. Yet, Duquesne found a way to slither their way back again. Its comeback started with 47 seconds left in the third, when Leszcynski found the back of the net on the power play. Emily King opened up the scoring in the fourth quarter to cut the lead to one, though it only took RMU 25 seconds to extend the lead back to two off a goal from Brothers.

Leszcynski and Evans once again struck to tie it at 10 with 4:48 left to play, but the Colonials put the game to bed thanks to the go-ahead goal from Gia Anthony with 3:30 remaining.

The Dukes went 6-for-9 on their free-position shots. Leszcynski deposited all three of her FPS in the back of the net. RMU struggled in that area, finishing 1-for-5. The Colonials did control the ground game, winning the ground-ball battle 21-17 and out-controlling the Dukes on the draw by a 13-9 margin. RMU was also able to overcome losing the turnover margin 25-20 and being outshot 18-16.

Duquesne will hit the road next Wednesday to Youngstown State before returning to Rooney on Feb. 22 for Saint Francis.