GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.— The Missouri Western State University Griffons withstood two Colorado Mesa University comebacks and scored four of the game's final five goals to claim a 9-7 NCAA Division II Midwest Region women's lacrosse road win on Sunday here at CMU's Community Hospital Unity Field.
 
The Griffons had seven different goal scorers and received nine saves from goalie Ava Garaway to improve to 2-1 on the season.
 
The Mavs fell to 0-4 as they dropped their home-opener.
 
CMU senior Carson Dickey recorded her second hat trick in a row for the Mavs while Kenzie Streby scored her first two goals of the campaign.  Devon Morris and Cameron Flynn also scored for the Mavs, who finished with a big 31-14 advantage in total shots.
 
However, the Griffons made use of their possession game and finished with a 12-7 edge in draw controls while improving their clearing efforts in the second half, going 7-for-7 in the final 30 minutes after failing on nine clearing attempts before the intermission.
 
The Griffons took the lead 3-0 on a woman-up goal, just 4:01 in to the second quarter.
 
More than five minutes later, the Mavs finally were able to crack the Griffon defense and Garaway's lock on the net as Dickey, Streby and Morris all scored goals in a span of 2:44 to tie the game at 3.
 
MWSU's Jessica Brook and Streby then exchanged goals just a minute apart as the game was tied at the half, 4-4.
 
Caetryn Gilreath then scored a minute into the second half to put the Griffons in front before Dickey responded with two goals just 38 seconds apart to give the Mavs their only lead, 6-5.
 
However, Gilreath converted a free position shot to level the score at the 8:19 mark of the third quarter before Maleah Sosa put the Griffons back in front, 7-6 with 2:43 left in the third quarter.
 
After going scoreless for more than 24 minutes at the start of the game, the Mavs were finally able to break a stretch of nearly 22 minutes without a goal at the 4:31 mark of the fourth quarter when Cameron Flynn backed up a Ella Freemon free position shot and came around the cage to pull CMU within 8-7.
 
However, the Griffons won the ensuing draw and ran the clock down before Madi Brinkman scored late in the possession to put the visitors up 9-7, which proved to be the final margin.
 
The Griffons won nine of the game's ten draw controls in the second half and had four different players finish with three.
 
Avery Irlbeck recorded five to lead the Mavs.  Sophie Astone also had three caused turnovers and three ground balls while Saide Chappuis had four ground balls and a pair of caused turnovers.
 
Heather Hawkins made five saves in net for the Mavs.
 
MWSU will close out a 3-game stretch in Colorado taking on Fort Lewis on Tuesday at 11 a.m. in a neutral-site game that CMU will host.
 
The Mavericks will continue a 3-game homestand next Saturday (Feb. 28) at 2 p.m. when they host national poll No. 21 Florida Tech.