LAKEWOOD, N.J. – The No. 5 West Chester University women's lacrosse team (1-0) opened its season on Saturday afternoon in the Garden State with a 17-5 win over Georgian Court (0-1).
Georgian Court opened the scoring just seconds into the contest before Maggie Stella (Doylestown, Pa./Central Bucks East) answered back with a goal of her own minutes later to even the score at 1-1 with just over 23 minutes to play in the first half. From this point, the Lions went on a 3-0 run to open up a 4-1 lead with nine minutes to play in the first half. Stella registered her second goal of the young season moments later to trim the deficit to 4-2 with slightly over eight minutes to play in the first half.
West Chester ended the first half on a 7-0 run thanks to three goals from Emily Schulze (Harleysville, Pa./North Penn), two goals from Tatum Altman (North Brunswick, N.J./North Brunswick, and single goals from Ryan McKinney (Downingtown, Pa./Downingtown West) and Sami Barnett (Glendolden, Pa./Interboro) to carry a 9-4 lead to the halftime break.
In the second half, the Golden Rams continued to play well as they scored the first three goals of the half thanks to a pair of goals from Barnett and another goal from McKinney to claim a 12-4 lead before the Lions could answer back to cut the deficit to 12-5.
West Chester registered another five goals over the course of the final 17 minutes as Kasey Kelly (Windsor, N.J./Notre Dame), Devon Mela (Newtown, Pa./Council Rock North), Schulze, Lindsay Monigle (Rehobeth Beach, Del./Cape Henelopen), and Barnett all added goals to give the Golden Rams the 17-5 victory to open the season.
Barnett and Schulze ended the game as the Golden Rams leading scorers as they each registered four goals while Altman, Stella, and McKinney each scored a pair of goals to lead the Golden Rams in the victory.
Barnett and Altman each ended with five points to lead the Golden Rams in this category as Barnett added an assist while Altman came away with three helpers in the season-opening victory. Barnett also finished as the teams leader in draw controls with four while Brenna Lynch (Richboro, Pa./Archbishop Wood) led the way in groundballs and caused turnovers with six and four, respectively.
Nicole Martins (Bethlehem, Pa./Saucon Valley) got the start in between the pipes for the Golden Rams and she made two saves before being replaced by Julianne Clemens (Springfield, Pa./Springfield DELCO) who played the remainder of the game registering four saves while allowing just one goal. Amber Neumann got the start in goal for the Lions and she went the distance between the pipes making nine saves in the loss.
West Chester ended the contest with a commanding 36-17 edge in shots and 26-11 edge in shots on goal. The Golden Rams also ended the contest with a plus-10 advantage in turnovers (24-14) and a plus-nine edge in ground balls (26-17). The Golden Rams also successfully converted 20 out of their 24 clear opportunities.
West Chester will be back in action on Wednesday, March 6th at home against top-ranked Le Moyne with that contest set to begin at 2 p.m. on Vonnie Gros Field.
