Junior midfielder Amanda Makoid's hat-trick, along with multi-goal efforts by four other Eagles, helped the AU women's lacrosse team capture a 12-11 victory over Lafayette College Saturday afternoon. The win was the first in Patriot League play for the Eagles, who improve to 1-3 in league play and 2-8 overall on the season.
The key to the Eagles triumph was a quick start, as the team scored the first five goals of the game to take a commanding 5-0 lead with just over 20 minutes remaining in the first half of play. Makoid scored the first two goals of the game for AU, while senior midfielder Leslie Fischer scored two goals of her own during this stretch.
The Leopards answered with back-to-back goals of their own to cut the lead to three at 5-2 but the Eagles again went on a scoring run, taking three of the next five tallies to go into halftime with an 8-4 lead.
The game got closer in the second half of play, as Lafayette cut the lead down to two, at 9-7, with 20 minutes remaining in the match.
AU built up the lead again to four at 12-8 with goals by sophomore midfielder Brit Ferguson and senior attacker Kira Sonberg.
The Leopards made one final charge, scoring three consecutive goals to cut AU's lead to only one at 12-11 with two minutes remaining in the game, but the Eagle defense held on for the hard-fought victory.
Makoid led all scorers with three goals in the match while Ferguson, Fischer, Sonberg and freshman midfielder Bernadette Maher each had two goals on the day.
The Eagles will return home Wednesday to take on the U.S. Naval Academy Midshipmen. The game starts at 3:30 p.m.
You can reach this staff writer at jhall@theeagleonline.com.
