HICKORY, N.C. - The Lander Women's Lacrosse team outscored the Lenoir-Rhyne Bears 5-0 in the second quarter to take an 8-2 lead at halftime and held off a late comeback from the hosts to emerge with a 10-7 win on Wednesday afternoon at Moretz Stadium.

With the win, Lander improves to 5-2 on the season and has won back-to-back games since their first two losses of the season. The Bears fall to 2-4 on the year.

Emmy Peterson led the offense for the Bearcats as the senior had a four-point game with two goals and two assists. Brooke Kelly and Izzy Olson each added a pair of goals while Alyssa Suchan, Mickey Burnett, Kasey Bronco, and Ella Benson all found the back of the cage once. 

Between the posts, Kara Krusbe made seven saves on the afternoon.

The Bears would open the scoring just under two minutes in but Lander would respond with two goals in 90 seconds as Suchan would find Kelly for her 13th goal of the season and on the ensuing possession, the Bearcats would pepper the Lenoir-Rhyne goal with four shots. The fourth would find the back of the cage from the stick of Izzy Olson to give Lander a 2-1 lead.

However, the Bears would tie the game 20 seconds later but the hosts would find themselves a man down a few moments later and Lander would take advantage as Emmy Peterson would score her first goal of the game and 14th of the season to give Lander a 3-2 lead.

The Lander defense would be stifling after the Bears' second goal as they would force seven Bear turnovers and hold them to a 50% clearance rate. In the game, Lenoir-Rhyne would be held to just a 67% clearance rate by the Bearcat defense.

Lenoir-Rhyne's best chance for the rest of the first half came at the end of the first quarter where the Bears would take a Bearcat turnover and have a good opportunity to score but Kara Krusbe would deny the hosts on two separate occasions and allowed Lander to clear the ball to wind down the quarter.

The second quarter was all Lander as the Bearcats would outshoot Lenoir-Rhyne 7-3 and only one of those shots from the Bears was on target. The Bearcats were limited offensively as they committed seven turnovers but still held Lenoir-Rhyne scoreless in the second 15 minutes.

Lander would get goals from five different people in the second as Brooke Kelly would open the scoring to extend Lander's lead to 4-2. Suchan and Burnett would each add a goal from the 8-meter within about 30 seconds of each other to grow the lead out to 6-2. Peterson would record her second goal of the game from the top of the arc to make it 7-2 and Ella Benson capped the scoring with her fourth goal of the season to give Lander an 8-2 halftime lead.

Lander's offensive pace would slow down in the second half as the Bearcats would only get two goals in the last 30 minutes.

After the Bears opened the second half with a goal, Kasey Bronco would restore the six-goal lead off the assist from Emmy Peterson. However, Lenoir-Rhyne would get two more goals before the end of the quarter to cut the lead to 9-5.

Lander would find themselves a man down early in the fourth but would kill off the yellow card and wouldn't allow the Bears to have a shot for the first half of the quarter. Meanwhile with just over seven and a half minutes left Peterson would find Izzy Olson to give Lander a 10-5 lead.

The Bears would not go quietly as they would get two quick goals to cut the Lander lead to 10-7 but the Lander defense would only allow two more shots from Lenoir-Rhyne, neither of which forced any action from Krusbe as the Bearcats would see out their fourth road win of the year.

The Women's Lacrosse team will have the weekend off before returning to action next Thursday, March 16th as they play host to the Embry-Riddle Eagles for a 2:00 PM start at Van Taylor Stadium.
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