Balanced Offense Carries CMS Women's Lacrosse to 21-4 Win at Whittier

WHITTIER, Calif. - A total of 15 players scored goals, led by a hat trick from first-year Macie Gruver, as the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps women's lacrosse team captured a 21-4 win at Whittier in a SCIAC road contest at Memorial Stadium.

With the win, CMS now stands at 3-1 on the young season, all in SCIAC games, while Whittier slips to 1-4, all in league games as well. 

In addition to the three goals and an assist from Gruver, sophomore Alex Futterman had two goals and two assists, senior Sascha Reynolds and first-year Katelyn Sparks each had two goals and an assist, and junior Sally Abel added two goals. 

The teams exchanged goals in the opening minutes, as the Poets answered goals from Futterman and senior Zoe Ryan to make it a 2-2 game at the 24:01 mark. CMS then caught fire, though, and scored eight straight goals to take a 10-2 lead. Gruver started the spurt at the 22:23 mark of the first half, quickly followed by goals from Abel (20:29) and sophomore Sammie Cohen (18:37).

After a five-minute lull, CMS struck for five goals of less than four minutes. Sparks had both of her goals in the stretch, sandwiched around the first from Reynolds, while sophomore Tessa Guerra and junior Julia Mueller added goals to make it 10-2 with 9:35 left in the half. 

Whittier stopped the 8-0 run with a Loren Sepulveda goal with 4:33 left, but first-year Annie Cave started a 3-0 CMS run to end the half, followed by Reynolds' second goal and the first from sophomore Alex Wilson to make the score 13-3 at intermission behind 11 different goal-scorers. 

CMS kept up the offensive pressure in the second half, as junior Eloise Shields scored the first goal after halftime. Whittier answered that one to make the score 14-4, but CMS closed out with the final seven goals of the game, with seniors Emily Cohen and Juliana Clark scoring their first ones of the night, as well as first-year Emme McMullen getting her first. 

Wilson led the defense with three caused turnovers, to go along with three ground balls, while Clark had a team-high four ground balls. Senior Sara Reid had four saves in the first half and junior Anna Gillespie added one in second as the two netminders combined to allow only four goals.  

CMS will be back in action on Saturday when it travels to Redlands for another SCIAC road contest, beginning at 7 p.m.