The AU women's lacrosse team defeated Lafayette 19-8 on Saturday, paced by senior Lauren Aksionoff's career-high six goals. With the win, the Eagles improve to 6-6 on the season and 2-1 in Patriot League play.
"It was huge to have Lauren play a great game," Coach Katie Woods said. "She has done well the past two games. Really established herself as a scoring threat."
The Eagles found itself down early on a goal by Maddy Booth two minutes into the game but quickly tied the match on a Caithlin Gorman goal a minute later.
Following back-to-back tallies by Aksionoff, AU took a lead that it would never relinquish. Aksionoff would score four of her six goals in the first half of play, while teammate Jackie Lane added a pair of her own to give the Eagles a commanding 11-6 lead at halftime.
The second half of play found the Eagles playing even stronger offensively. Amanda Makoid opened the scoring on a goal only 1:27 into the half to give the Eagles a 12-6 advantage.
After Lafayette's Maria Drehwing scored her first of two goals in the period at the 25:22 marks to cut the lead to 12-7, AU went on a 5-0 run to push the lead to a double-digit margin of 18-7. During this stretch, Gorman scored back-to-back goals only 44 seconds apart while Aksionoff finished her day with her sixth goal of the afternoon.
Drehwing would snap the AU run at the 7:04 mark but it would not be enough, as the Eagles cruised to a 19-8 victory.
The 19 goals scored by the Eagles were the most the team had scored all season and were only two shy of breaking the all-time school record of 21 set in 1997 against Duquesne.
Although Aksionoff was the team's high scorer, the Eagles had eight players find the back of the net, including multigoal efforts by Gorman, Lane, Gina Ibello and Kira Sonberg.
Coach Woods credited the offensive explosion to the way the team has come together over the past couple of weeks, saying that it was time for the team to step up and take responsibility for its actions in order to be successful.
AU plays home on Saturday at 1 p.m. against Bucknell before playing its home finale against Longwood on Wednesday.
