MOUNT OLIVE, N.C. – On the road at the Ray McDonald Sr. Sports Complex for their first game in 10 days, the Lander women's lacrosse team made a return to the win column with a 10-8 victory over the host Mount Olive Trojans in non-conference action Tuesday afternoon.
The Bearcats picked up their 10th win of the season as they improved to 10-3. The Trojans are now .500 at 7-7, while carrying a 6-1 mark in Conference Carolinas.
Ella Benson continued her recent torrid stretch with four goals today. Benson has 15 goals over the last four games and has scored four-plus times in three of those.
Mickey Burnett scored twice, and
Kylie Fragala,
Izzy Olson,
Kayla Smith and
Sophie Warren all added one.
Autumn Huskey turned in a stellar performance to lead the defensive side of the field, registering four caused turnovers, seven ground balls and three draw controls.
Kara Krusbe provided her stalwart presence in goal to the tune of 13 saves and a .619 save percentage.
The game started slowly for Lander with UMO leading 2-0 for a chunk of the first quarter. Huskey, though, forced a late turnover and cleared the ball before giving it off to
Caroline Nicholson, who found Burnett for a goal with just two seconds left.
Fresh off that late score, the Bearcats poured it on the Trojans in a 5-0 second quarter to take a 6-2 lead into the half.
Brooke Kelly assisted Burnett for the first goal, Benson had the second, Fragala then scored off a Warren pass, and Benson tacked on two more with the latter coming on the woman-advantage with 5:52 remaining in the quarter.
Both sides scored a pair in the third to make it 8-4 Lander at the start of the fourth.
The Trojans cut the gap to 8-6 five minutes in, but Olson converted on the woman-advantage with nine minutes to play to push the lead back to three – the Blue and Gold had three such goals in the game.
Benson brought the score to 10-6 with 2:49 to go to put the game away.
Lander will have another lengthy period between games before hitting the road for the final two games of the regular season next Thursday and Saturday, April 17 and 19. The first game will be against Alabama Huntsville (8 p.m. ET/7 p.m. CT), with the weekend contest against the Falcons of Montevallo (Noon ET/11 a.m. CT).
