Clare Nelson-Johnson

Clare Nelson-Johnson scored at the beginning of the second half to pull The College of Wooster within 2-1 in what had been a closely-contested game to that point, but Denison University added another pair of goals shortly after, and the Big Red maintained that margin to oust the Scots 4-1 on Thursday afternoon in a North Coast Athletic Conference Tournament semifinal match-up at Granville, Ohio.

After the Big Red (15-5) took a 2-0 lead into the break, the Scots (11-9) quickly made it a one-goal game just 2:07 into the second stanza, when Nikki Sever located Clare Nelson-Johnson for the latter's 24th goal of the season. Before Wooster could create some momentum, though, Denison responded with a goal about three minutes later to increase its lead back to two (3-1), and then made it 4-1 at the 45:07-mark via Catie Merrick's second goal of the afternoon.

The Scots aggressively tried to get back on the scoreboard, as they outshot the Big Red 7-3 over the game's final 17:20, including four rapid-fire attempts within a 50 second span off the sticks of Anna Divis, Dana Feit, Shelby Stone, and Taylor Thorp.

Goalkeeper Liz Plumley made five saves in the setback, with three coming in the first half, while her counterpart, Brittany Benson, recorded six saves. Overall, Denison tallied just one more shot attempt than Wooster (14-13), while both teams earned eight penalty corners.