CMS Women's Lacrosse Pulls Away for 21-12 Win Over Colorado College

CLAREMONT, Calif. - Rachel Leonardi scored six goals, Alex Futterman talliedfour goals and eight draw controls, and Olivia Carey had three goals and five assists, as the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps women's lacrosse team built an early lead and held off a Colorado College challenge to take a 21-12 win on Sunday afternoon at Zinda Field.

Tessa Guerra also added three goals and an assist, as CMS improves to 6-3 on the year after its final non-conference contest. Colorado College falls to 7-6 with the loss, after falling to Pomona-Pitzer 14-9 on Friday in its first game of its California trip. 

CMS came into the game with three lopsided home wins in which the running clock was enforced for a 10-goal margin in the first half. The Athenas started out like they might do it again, jumping out to a 5-0 lead just 5:27 into the game. Leonardi opened the scoring off a feed from Carey, and then Carey and Futterman each scored twice to help the Athenas start the game on nearly a goal-a-minute pace. 

Colorado College withstood the early barrage, though, and scored three straight goals to close the gap to 5-3. Guerra and Emme McMullen pushed the CMS lead to 7-3, but the Tigers appeared to come all the way back to tie the score 8-8, but had the tying goal disallowed after a stick check. Leonardi then responded with two straight goals and Maggie Griffis added one to give CMS an 11-7 lead at the half. 

Guerra and McMullen started the second half with two straight goals, both off of feeds from Carey, to give CMS its largest lead at 13-7. Colorado College responded with two straight of their own to make it 13-9, but Futterman closed out the third with a free position goal to give CMS a 14-9 lead heading into the fourth.

The teams exchanged goals in the early part of the fourth, but CMS was able to rattle off the final four goals of the contest after the Tigers cut it to 17-12 to finish off a 21-12 victory. Catherine Murphy and Taylor Daetz added their first goals of the game in the fourth. 

Kendall Chapko (first half) and Holly Shankle (second half) shared the time in goal, with each making five saves. Maisy Mills led the defense with three caused turnovers and tied Alex Wilson for team-high honors with four ground balls. 

CMS will be back in action on Wednesday when it travels to Whittier, before facing Pomona-Pitzer at home on Saturday at 7 p.m. with a chance to pull back even for first in the conference standings.