WATERVILLE, ME - Colby defeated Williams women's lacrosse this afternoon 14-10. Williams fell to 4-8 on the season and 0-8 in the NESCAC, while Colby improved to 10-1 overall and 6-1 in the conference.
Williams' offense was led by Lilly Wellenbach, who had a hand in six of the Ephs' 10 tallies, with four goals and two assists on the game. Lindsey McKenna led the Mules with four goals.
Ali Piltch had six saves in net for the Ephs. Claire Dickson, who played the first half in goal for the Mules, stopped four of the 13 shots she faced, while Michelle Burt had five saves on six shots in the second half.
Colby scored two goals in the game's first five minutes, but the Ephs quickly climbed into the lead with a 4-0 run between the 24:13 mark and the 20:53 mark – with three goals coming from Wellenbach. Katie Griffin was able to score on a free position shot for the Mules with 18:17 remaining in the half to make the score 4-3, but Wellenbach earned a free position shot of her own only 18 seconds later and put it away to put the Ephs back up two.
After Griffin again scored for the Mules with 13:42 to play in the half, the Ephs went on a 4-1 run over the following four minutes to take a 9-5 lead. The run included goals from tri-captains Margie Fulton and Meera Sivalingam. The Mules were able to close the gap before the break, though, keeping the Ephs off the scoreboard for the remaining 9:49 and scoring two goals of their own to make the score 9-7 headed into halftime.
Williams head coach Chris Mason was impressed with the way her team played in the first 30 minutes. "We came out and played absolutely great lacrosse in the first half – played so well, fought like crazy, moved the ball well, got great looks at the goal, really put a variety of shots in; I thought we did a wonderful job in the first half defensively too," she said.
The second half proved to be a different story than the first for the Ephs. With Burt replacing Dickson in goal, Colby ripped off a run of three consecutive goals to open the half, capped by a goal from McKenna with 19:05 to play that gave the Mules their first lead since the 24:13 mark of the first half. Fulton was able to retie the game for Williams when she scored off a pass from Wellenbach with 13:04 to play, but McKenna responded for Colby 38 seconds later to make the score 11-10. Colby forced the Ephs to stretch their defense for the remainder of the game and was able to score three more goals off the spread out Eph defense to walk away with the 14-10 win.
"In the second half, we stopped handling the ball well – too much of it was unforced errors ... Defensively, it was still OK, but we just didn't handle the ball ourselves as well, and we turned it over too much.
"[Kaitlin] Ellis missed three quarters of the game [with a head injury], and that hurt us because she brings energy, but that's no excuse for why they handled the ball better than we did," she added.
Williams next faces Hamilton at 7 p.m. on Wednesday on the road.
