BEREA, Ohio - The Marietta College women's lacrosse team used a big second half to earn a 16-12 road victory over Baldwin Wallace University, on Saturday (April 3) afternoon. With the win the Pioneers improve to 5-5 overall and 5-5 in Ohio Athletic Conference play, and with the loss the Yellow Jackets fall to 1-9 overall and 1-9 in OAC action.
"Extremely proud of the team for their performance. One of the focuses going into today was not just having goals, but differentiating what we needed to do to obtain those goals. We had players all over the field step up and finally hit their potential at the right time," said Head Coach
Malory Nadrah.
Baldwin Wallace opened the scoring in the first minute of the match to lead, 1-0. Marietta responded with three unanswered goals, to lead 3-1, at the 22:30 minute mark of the half. All three Pioneer goals were scored by
Natalie Cocco (McMurray, Pa./Peters Township). The Yellow Jackets scored a goal 30 seconds later to make the score, 3-2 in favor of Marietta. Five minutes later, Makenzie Dyott found the back of the net off a feed from
Hope Adams (Delaware, Ohio/Bishop Watterson) to put the Pioneers up 4-2. Baldwin Wallace scored the final three goals of the half and led, 5-4 at the intermission.
Marietta opened the second half with five consecutive goals, to take a 9-5 advantage, five minutes into the second half.
Shannon Doyle (Gibsonia, Pa/Mars Area) scored three of the goals, and Cocco scored a pair during the run. The Yellow Jackets scored two of the next three goals, and made the score 10-7 in favor of the Pioneers. The Marietta goal was scored by Dyott. The Pioneers extended their lead to 13-7 with three consecutive goals from, Cocco, Adams, and
Rachel Sivie (Washington, Pa./Trinity). After a Baldwin Wallace goal, Doyle and Sivie scored a pair of goals to put Marietta on top, 15-8 with 13 minutes to play in the game. The Yellow Jackets answered with three straight goals, to trim the Pioneers edge to 15-11, with 8:32 minutes remaining in the game. 12 seconds later Adams found the back of the net for the Pioneers and increased the lead to 16-11. Baldwin Wallace scored the final goal of the match, but Marietta won 16-12.
Maddie Leers (Crystal Lake, Ill./Barrington) played all 60 minutes in net for the Pioneers, she faced 22 shots, 20 of which were on goal, and made eight saves, to earn her fifth win of the season.
The Marietta offense was led by Cocco, she had a game high six goals. Doyle pitched in with four goals, six draw controls, and three groundballs. Adams had a game high seven draw controls, and scored a pair of goals. Dyott caused a game high three turnovers, and scored a pair of goals.
"Natalie did a great job being aggressive and finishing today, giving us great momentum during the first half. Hope, Shannon, Kyla and Rachel gave us huge sparks in the second half on offense and on the draw. Their contributions kept us ahead on the scoreboard and kept us ignited mentally to secure the win," concluded Coach Nadrah.
The Pioneers will return to action Wednesday (April 7) when they travel to take on Capital University, with the game scheduled to begin at. 7 p.m.
Fans can follow all of the Pioneer teams all year long at
pioneers.marietta.edu. You can also follow the Pioneers on Facebook at
facebook.com/MariettaCollege and @MariettaPioneer on Twitter and Instagram.
