CMS Women's Lacrosse Storms Into SCIAC Finals with 18-6 Win over Chapman

CLAREMONT, Calif. - Senior Corie Hack scored six goals for the third straight game as the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps women's lacrosse team advanced to the SCIAC Championship game for the third year in a row with an 18-6 win over Chapman in the semifinal round on Wednesday night at Zinda Field.

With the win, the Athenas improve to 15-2 on the year and stretch their winning streak against SCIAC teams to 35 in a row, including three straight 10-0 regular seasons and five straight postseason wins. A championship rematch with Pomona-Pitzer, a 17-12 winner over Occidental this evening in the other semifinal, on Saturday at 1 p.m. stands in the way of CMS earning its third straight league title and NCAA Tournament berth. 

Hack finished with six goals and one assist, giving her 68 goals this season and 209 in her career, moving her alone into second place in CMS history. Freshman Alex Futterman had four goals and one assist, and sophomore Sally Abel and freshman Sammie Cohen each added hat tricks. 

CMS wasted no time taking control of the game, scoring twice in the game's first 31 seconds and opening up a 6-0 lead by the seven-minute mark. Hack opened the scoring 17 seconds in, and Abel followed 14 seconds later to make it 2-0. Hack added three more tallies in the initial 6-0 spurt, giving her four goals with 23:00 left in the first half, before Chapman broke the ice with 20:26 to go on a goal from Meg Hanson. 

The Athenas rattled off the next three goals in a row to go ahead 9-1 with 12:51 left in the half, as Hack scored her fifth, followed by goals from Futterman and junior Emma Johnson. After Chapman scored two straight, CMS put together another 3-0 run, capped off by junior defender Kira Weiss picking up a ground ball in front of her own net and rushing the length of the field to score her third goal of the season.  

Leah Donnelly (four goals) capped off the first half scoring for Chapman to make it a 12-4 CMS lead at the break, but the Athenas scored the first four goals of the second half to open their largest lead of the game at 16-4. Hack started the run with her sixth, and Futterman and Cohen each capped off hat tricks with their third goals. 

Senior Nicole Greenberg got the start in goal and picked up the win to improve to 3-0 this season and 5-0 in her career, while sophomore Anna Gillespie had nine saves in a relief effort while allowing three goals. Preetha Raj had a strong effort in goal for Chapman with 14 saves in the loss. Hack had four caused turnovers and four ground balls, while Weiss had three of each to lead the CMS defense. 

Looking ahead to Saturday afternoon, the Athenas won both regular season meetings from Pomona-Pitzer, earning a 9-5 win in a defensive battle in the first meeting on March 8, and then taking a 15-4 win in the rematch at Zinda Field on April 20.  Hack was held to just one goal in the first meeting, the lowest output for her this season, but responded in the rematch to score six times, the second of her three straight six-goal games.