Top-Seeded Athenas Thrash Panthers, Advance to SCIAC Championship

CLAREMONT, Calif. – The top-seeded Claremont-Mudd-Scripps women's lacrosse team flexed their muscle in the SCIAC Semifinals against Chapman, earning a 17-6 victory on Saturday afternoon to advance to next weekend's SCIAC Championship. The Athenas took a 12-3 lead at the half before cruising to an 11-goal victory.

Seven different Athenas scored in the victory, with Corie Hack (CMC) and Evan Murphy (CMC) leading the team with four goals each. In addition to her four goals, Murphy dished out three assists to help the Athenas advance to their second-straight SCIAC Championship game.

CMS will now square off with the third-seeded Pomona-Pitzer Sagehens in the SCIAC Championship next weekend at 1:00 p.m. The Sagehens upset the Occidental Tigers, 17-15 on Saturday in the other SCIAC Semifinal played at Occidental.

Just as they have all season, the Athenas wasted little time taking a commanding lead with five goals in the first six minutes of the game to take an early 5-0 lead. Fresh off her SCIAC Offensive Athlete of the Year honor, Corie Hack got the scoring going with the first goal of the game on a free position shot just over a minutes into the contest.

Two and a half minutes later, Sally Abel (CMC) tallied off a pass from Evan Murphy to make it a 2-0 game with 26:11 remaining in the half. Kira Weiss (CMC) found the back of the net for just the second time this season to start a thirty-second stretch that bumped the CMS lead from 2-0 to 5-0. Immediately following Weiss' goal, Allie Hill (CMC) won a draw control and found a streaking Evan Murphy, who connected for her 35th goal of the season. It felt like a replay 12 seconds later, when Hill won the draw and found Murphy once again for the fifth Athena goal of the contest.

The next ten minutes was a relatively even stretch, with the Panthers and Athenas each scoring three goals. Leah Donnelly was the offense for the Panthers, scoring all three Chapman goals during the stretch. For CMS it was Evan Murphy completing her hat trick and Allie Hill scoring a pair of goals during the 10-minute span.

Hannah Graves (CMC) got on the board with a tally off a pass from Murphy with just over 10 minutes remaining in the half. Graves' goal started an eight-goal streak for CMS that eventually gave the Athenas a 16-3 lead midway through the second-half.

After the score from Graves, Corie Hack, Sally Abel, and Allie Hill each connected to wrap-up the opening half and gave CMS a 12-3 lead at the break.

Four more goals followed to start the second-half with Murphy and Hack each scoring once and Lauren Clubb (CMC) notching back-to-back goals before the Panthers finished the game on a 3-1 run. Despite Chapman's modest scoring run at the end of the game, CMS held on for their 17th-straight victory and, as mentioned, advances to the SCIAC Championship game next Saturday when they host the Pomona-Pitzer Sagehens on Saturday afternoon at 1:00 p.m.

This season, the Athenas handled their Sixth Street rivals with victories of 15-5 and 17-3 in their two previous meetings.