GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. – CMU women's lacrosse's 17-6 win over UCCS exemplified that it's much easier to score when you have the ball.
The Mavericks dominated on draw controls, doubling up the Mountain Lions 18-9 in corralled draws, which increased CMU possessions and enabled the Mavs to completely dictate the pace of the match. Colorado Mesa also didn't make mistakes with the ball, committing just 10 turnovers all game. The Mavs actually caused more turnovers (12) than they committed, with CMU responsible for causing 12 of UCCS's 18 turnovers.
Kiley Davis peppered the scoresheet with four goals to headline a balanced CMU offensive attack.
Caroline Ohngemach backed up her career-high performance from last game with three goals for her second career hat trick plus an assist for four total points.
Peyton Ivey made a trio of Mavs with hat tricks, notching three goals for the first time in her college career.
UCCS started strongly, as team leading scorer Julia Patrick had a hat trick of her own wrapped up in the game's first 10 minutes. Patrick notched two unassisted goals, then received an assist from Allie Schell to put the Mountain Lions up 3-1.
The Mavericks roared back with nine unanswered goals. The Mavs took advantage of two woman-up opportunities, with
Kiley Davis and
Peyton Ivey scoring on free position shots after a pair of UCCS yellow cards. Davis scored two in a row, including with a woman-up advantage to tie the score, then Ivey scored twice before Davis finished off her hat trick with 9:31 to play in the second quarter to make it 6-3.
Carson Dickey,
Melanie Evans and Ohngemach would score later on in the second quarter and
Ali Bryant's goal one minute into the third quarter extended the Maverick lead to 10-3 before Patrick's fourth of the game stopped the scoring run.
Ivey finished her hat trick and passed her career high of two goals thanks to an assist from
Courtney Havel, the first of three for Havel in the second half alone.
Caroline Ohngemach scored two of her three in the second half, including a nifty backhanded finish to beat the shot clock buzzer midway through the fourth quarter. Freshman
Justine Anderson scored CMU's final two goals of the game to bring her tally with 22 on the season.
UCCS goalie Madison McGriff, who entered as the conference leader in saves, performed valiantly to deny the Mavs even more goals. McGriff made 14 saves, including five in the first period and nine in the first half.
The Mavericks outshot UCCS 39-18 and converted 18 of 19 clear attempts.
Shannon Murphy got six saves in goal for CMU to earn the win.
With this victory, the Mavericks have clinched no worse than a top-two finish in the RMAC this season. Next up, the Mavericks will try to undo history by beating national No. 4 Regis for the first time in school history. If the Mavs pull the upset, they open the door to win all or part of a first RMAC title in program history, while a loss would destine the Mavericks to repeating their second-place finish from the past two seasons.
