HARROGATE, Tenn. — It was the perfect ending to a perfect day.
 
With two minutes remaining, Sean Fraser subbed out each senior — Itzel Ballesteros, Maria Hernandez, Amanda Perez and Jessica Steen with Mikayla Vang, who was unable to play to due to an injury, there to greet her fellow seniors — as he hugged each one and their teammates cheered aligned on the sideline.
 
The senior day moment added onto the morning full of festivities put on by the coaching staff and teammates, and then the 3-nil victory over South Atlantic Conference opponent Mars Hill to complete regular-season play put the finishing touches on top of the five student-athlete's final day at the LMU Soccer Complex Wednesday.
 
"Today was a very special day," Perez said. "The seniors, we've been talking about it for a while now — we didn't know what to expect — but overall it was a great day between the presentations that Sean provided for the us, the gifts, the posters and the crowd. I love how Sean put us in all together in the end and then subbed us out and we got a clap from everyone.
 
"That was cute and memorable. It was great overall day and it couldn't have gone better. I wouldn't have wanted it to end any other way."

The Lady Railsplitters (13-4, 6-4 SAC) got on the board within the first 10 minutes when the dual threat of Jessica Cravero and Thenia Zervas met again. Cravero, the back-to-back and three-time AstroTurf SAC Offensive Player of the Week, juked the defender and whipped the ball past the goalkeeper for her 16th goal of the season while Zervas put her 16th assist in her pocket.
 
Cravero has now scored in four straight games for eight goals over that span while Zervas has six assists through the past three matches. Of those eight Cravero goals, five of Zervas' assists has complemented Cravero's finish.
 
"It's blossoming now, isn't it? They are starting to talk about things," said LMU head coach Sean Fraser of the Zervas-to-Cravero connection, "and are working on things like Jessica's run; it's kind of opened it up for Thenia to play the ball. Thenia is like our quarterback and she is. She's the one who distributes the ball all over the place. She has so many touches on the ball — we've never experienced someone that has so many key passes in a game or can create so many chances.
 
"We are fortunate that we have someone that can create that many chances, but we are double fortunate that we have someone that can finish those chances. Jessica is flying at the moment in front of the goal and you can see the players playing with a smile on their face that it is obviously translating from the performance to the results."
 
From there, Hernandez had a senior day she'll never forget.
 
First, the Californian collected a blocked shot in the 17th minute and put it home for her second goal of the season to go up 2-0. The midfielder Hernandez then used her second assist at the 26th-minute mark to put Zervas on the other side of the stat sheet as the Greek sent a beautiful shot up and through for her third goal to pair with her 16 assists.
 
"I feel comfortable in saying Maria Hernandez is the best player to ever play for LMU women's soccer," Fraser said. "That's it — I didn't have to say anything else. Everyone in the room is nodding, 'Yeah, she is.' Great senior day. She deserves goals."
 
The Lady Railsplitters' dominant force was obvious on both sides of the ball as the defense kept the opposing shots to a minimum for the second consecutive game and held Mars Hill (2-13-1, 2-8) to just one in each half.
 
On the other hand, LMU compiled 13 shots in the first 45 minutes followed by 11 more to keep the shots up and past the 20s for another week.
 
"We've played the bottom two teams in the conference, but at the same time, you have to execute and that's not just execute offensively you have to be able to execute defensively as well," Fraser said. "We've done a good job. We've played the game in the areas we want to play the game, and I think both games we've had 20-plus shots and we've restricted the other team and that's what you want to do. I think our defensive transitions and recovery running has been really good — in the last two games we've been working on that and that's been big for us."
  
Up Next: The Lady Railsplitters will now await the final conference matches to conclude to see their fate in the SAC Tournament, which will begin Saturday at the highest seed.

Stay tuned to LMURailsplitters.com, as well as LMU's social media platforms —@LMURailsplitter on Twitter, @LMURailsplitters on Facebook and @lmurailsplitters on Instagram — for complete coverage of the LMU soccer teams through the 2019 season.