MARIETTA, Ohio — The Marietta College women's lacrosse team played on the home blue turf for the first time in 2024 and posted a decisive 17-9 win over Westminster College Wednesday (March 13) evening. The Pioneers improve to 4-2 on the season, while the Titans fall to 1-3 overall.
"It was a rocky first quarter but I'm proud of the team's persistence in figuring it out tonight," Marietta head coach
Malory Nadrah said. "Westminster has some great players and they fought the whole game. It could have easily slipped back in their direction at any time, but our defense played phenomenal 1v1 and kept sending it back to our attacking end."
The Pioneers wasted little time getting on the board as
Hope Adams (Delaware, Ohio/Bishop Watterson) broke free and found the net just one minute into the game to take the lead. Westminster's Morgan Clark answered with a score on the next possession to tie the game. Marietta would win the ensuing draw control with Adams quickly scoring a free position goal and on the following possession,
Sarah Imig (Plainfield, Ill./Plainfield Central) would put the Pioneers up 3-1 with a score. The Titans fought back with a pair of scores from Emma Brazier to tie the game and both teams were deadlocked at three going into the second quarter.
Both teams battled back and forth into the second period with no points, but with great defense on display. Marietta caused two turnovers and Pioneers goalkeeper
Abby May (Randolph, Ohio/St. Vincent-St. Mary) made four tough saves in the first eight minutes to keep the game tied. The Pioneers finally unbroke the tie with a free position score from
Mallory Wiles (Columbus, Ohio/Worthington Kilbourne). After Brazier tied it back up with less than three minutes, Marietta close d the half with a trio of scores.
Jordan Jeffries (Baltimore, Md./Baltimore Polytechnic) scored an unassisted score, Adams scored again from a
Renee Mulvaney (Midland, Mich./Midland) assist, and
Natalie Cocco (McMurray, Pa./Peters Township) scored with nine seconds remaining. Marietta would take a 7-4 lead into the half.
Westminster struck first in the third period with another goal from Nina Rascona, but Marietta answered with another flurry of scores. Adams scored at the 10:23 mark from an assist from Cocco. Three minutes later, Wiles scored again on a free position shot. Mulvaney scored a fast break goal on the next possession after
Alayna Francis (Irwin, Pa./Norwin) won the draw control and fed her a perfect pass. She then scored three minutes later off of a free position shot to give the Pioneers an 11-5 advantage. Adams and Mulvaney each tacked on another score and Marietta took a 13-6 lead into the final period.
Westminster could not overcome the margin even though they would score three times during the period.
Casey Roeder (Milford, Ohio/Milford) scored one minute into the period. Adams and Jeffries tacked on additional goals and
Sophi Merickel (Phoenix, Ariz./Cactus Shadows) added one last score in the final two minutes. Marietta would cruise to victory, 17-9.
Adams led the way for the Pioneers with six goals. Mulvaney scored three goals and assisted on two others. Wiles and Jeffries scores a pair of goals apiece. McGriff scored three times and assisted on five other goals. Francis led with seven draw controls and picked up three groundballs while assisting on two goals.
Marley Phillippe (Easton, Md./Easton) led with three caused turnovers and four groundballs during the match.
Abby May (Randolph, Ohio/St. Vincent-St. Mary) played all 60 minutes in goal for the Pioneers. May faced 27 shots, 18 of which were on goal and made nine saves.
"Amazing defense tonight from our whole unit but especially Alayna, Sophi, Sarah and Marley," concluded Nadrah. "They played incredible against some great drivers and had some huge CT's for us tonight."
Marietta is back in action at home on Saturday (March 16) with a 4 p.m. match against Chatham University.
Fans can follow all 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 X and Instagram.
