The Eastern University women's lacrosse team recovered from a slow start to beat Wilkes University 15-5 on a very warm senior day in St. Davids. Grace Griffith and Jessie Basch each connected on four goals and Katie Choquette scored three times and set up another pair of goals.

The Eastern team honored their eight seniors in a short presentation prior to the match, and some of the energy expended prior to the game seemed to take away from the Eagles' energy in the early going. Nonetheless, the Eagles never trailed in the contest. Basch opened the scoring with a driving goal in the third minute. The Colonels answered immediately when Melissa Polchinski scored her first of four on the day off the ensuing draw.

Choquette gave the Eagles a 2-1 lead moments later when she dropped a free position shot into the bottom half of the net for her 27th of the year. The Eagles owned much of the possession over the next several minutes, but neither team was able to find the goal until Kat Edwards scored for the guests to level the score at two with 17:38 to play. 

The Eastern staff used their bench liberally, and the heat seemed to take effect on the less deep Wilkes team. Basch put the Eagles up for good midway through the period. The Eagles then turned up the pressure on defense in the attacking half. On one potential clear, the visitors ran for ninety seconds straight to try to get open for a ball from the goalie prior to an interception by Courtney Reinhold.

With their guests visibly tired, the Eastern attack scored three straight inside a minute and fifteen seconds around the six minute mark. Griffith scored the first two, and Choquette put the Eagles up 6-2 with 5:17 in the opening half. Polchinski scored a very nice quick sitick goal on an Edwards feed to cut the Eastern lead to 6-3 at the break.

Eastern had a 17-8 edge in shots at intermission. Coach Camrin Azzarano was not pleased with the first half and demanded her team to work harder in the offense. "We were slow," she said, "we need to be way more crisp and force them to work harder to stop us. In the first half we really struggled to get any rhythm."

The Eagles picked up the pace and scored nine second half goals while holding Wilkes to just six shots in the second half. Polchinski, who entered the game third in the conference in points per game, finished with four of Wilkes' five goals. The Eastern defense completely shut down Brittney Hodnik, who led the league in points per game prior to today. Hodnik picked up her only point on a second half assist.

Griffith scored twice in the opening ten minutes of the second half, and Basch added a free position goal as the Eagles led 9-4 with twenty minutes to play. Midfielder Jess Field set up the Eagles' 10th of the day on a nice catch of a Kim Campbell clearing pass. The speedy sophomore avoided traffic on the right side and flipped a late pass to Choquette, a fellow Rhode Islander, right on the doorstep. Choquette's goal was her 29th of the year. Moments later Field took the ball to the cage by herself for her second of the year. 

Basch answered Polchinski's fourth of the day with her 48th of the year. The senior midfielder finished with six caused turnovers, three draw controls, and five ground balls. Kristin Brownett scored two straight in a twenty-two second stretch to put the Eagles up 14-5. The Eagles scored their final goal of the day on a beautiful pass from Choquette to Erin Fries as the game drew to a close. The Eagles were down a pair of players due to yellow cards for the last three minutes of the game.

The Eastern defense kept the Wilkes attackers out of good scoring positions as Kim Campbell stopped just six shots in the win. Wilkes entered the day averaging over sixteen goals per game.

The Eagles (8-6, 6-3 MASCAC) will play their final regular season home game on Wednesday against Widener before traveling to Lycoming for an important game between likely first round opponents on Saturday.

Box Score