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KENNESAW, Ga. – Kennesaw State women's lacrosse continues to roll on offense, as the Owls used a 7-0 run to blow open the game on the way to a school-record tying eighth win of the season, 18-10 over Gardner-Webb on Saturday afternoon from Fifth Third Bank Stadium.
By closing out their non-conference schedule with the eight-goal victory, the Owls improved to 8-4 on the year, by far its best-ever start to the season. The eight wins also matches the most in program history, tying the 2017 (8-9) and the 2019 (8-10) squads.
KEY PLAYERS: Senior midfielder
Siena Gore, the nation's leading scorer, added to her season goal tally thanks to a five-goal day. She also added four assists for nine total points, along with nine draw controls.
Chesslyn Lamar meanwhile set a new career-high with four goals and was one of four total players with hat tricks in the victory.
THE RUNDOWN: Gardner-Webb actually scored the first two goals of the afternoon and ended the first quarter with a goal to take a 5-4 lead after the first 15 minutes. The Owls then put on an impressive defensive show, holding the Running Bulldogs scoreless for the next 25 minutes of the game. Gore scored on a free-position shot to tie the game and start a run of seven unanswered goals as KSU doubled up Gardner-Webb. GWU would come back to score three of the next five goals to close within 13-8 with just under a minute left in the third quarter. The Owls then shut down any threat of a comeback by the visitors, scoring the next five goals for an 18-8 advantage.
QUOTEABLE: "I thought today was a really good team win. We let them hang in there in the first quarter with us, but from then on, I thought the rest of the quarters we won, and we won them big. Defensively we caused a lot of turnovers, we were scrappy back there. There were some key players we wanted to focus on, and we did a great job, while our man-down defense was also good. All in all, we made great adjustments after the first quarter to put us in a position to win the game. Having a lot of people score today, and to have a lot of them assisted was great to see, we have already pass last year's assist total, so we are moving the ball much better today and that's showing on the scoreboard.
On claiming a win over Gardner-Webb after it won at ASUN member Stetson
"Opening ASUN play at Stetson is something we talked about when approaching this game, we really wanted to not just do what we had to do to win today, but also fire up our team on getting prepared for Stetson. Having played some common opponents, I think you can see on the scoreboard we've showed that we have improved on the tremendously from last year to this year.
On Siena Gore's impact on the offense with the attention she drew from their defense
"Siena getting those two assists in the first quarter when they were keying in on her, flooding her with two to three girls on her, she was really able to see her teammates and get them great opportunities to score. And once Gardner-Webb saw she was an equal threat to score, it opened up the scoring lanes for her as well. Five goals, four assists, that shows she's a dual threat." -
KSU head coach Laura Maness.
NOTES
-KSU improved to 5-1 all-time against the Running Bulldogs.
-The Owls held a 29-24 edge on shots and 21-16 on shots on goal.
-Also scoring for the Owls on Saturday were
Mia MacKenzie and Hanna Barth with hat tricks, while
McKenzie Jackson added a pair of goals and
Natalie Welch had one score. Jaxysn Schonewille had a multi-assist day for KSU with two.
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Julia Weiss started the game for KSU and posted two saves and five goals allowed, while also notching a scoreless quarter in the second.
Errin Crowe finished the game with the first two quarters and collected four saves while allowing five scores.
-Draw controls were also in KSU's favor at 16-13. The ground ball battle went to Gardner-Webb by an 18-16 margin.
NEXT TIME OUT: The Owls begin ASUN play on Saturday, April 2 with a road contest at Stetson in Deland, Fla., with a 12 p.m. start.
