GEORGETOWN, Texas — For much of the Southwestern University Pirates' women's lacrosse game against the Augustana Vikings, senior attacker Hayley Donnelly stood patiently behind her opponent's goal, scanning the pattern of player movement swirling around the net, waiting for an opportunity to strike.
Donnelly dissected the Augustana defense, finding cutters with precision passes on her way to a career-high 12 points to lead the Pirates to a 22-10 victory, dishing nine assists and scoring three goals.
The Pirates fell behind in an early 6-3 hole, giving up three consecutive goals, getting two from Augustana's Margaret Cecilio with one a player up.
Raven Garcia ignited the offense for the Pirates, sprinting up the middle of the field, planting hard, and delivering a beautiful spin move to draw a foul and score on the ensuing free position shot. Madison Godleski took over on draw controls, giving the Pirates possession on 11 of the 16 in the first half as Southwestern strung together six consecutive goals with two coming from Godleski for a 9-6 lead.
Augustana closed the gap with a late unassisted goal by Sydney Rector but the Pirates answered with a Donnelly goal as time expired in the first half, taking a 10-7 lead into the break.
The Pirates opened the second half with three consecutive goals assisted by Donnelly, finding Garcia for the first and Godleski for a pair.
Building a 16-10 lead, the Pirates closed the game in dominant fashion, scoring the last six goals with Donnelly assisting on two and Grace Maynard scoring two.
Defensive specialist Julia Tape shutdown Augustana leading scorer Christina McCabe, face guarding her opponent after McCabe scored an early goal and limiting her to just two shots. McCabe's frustration grew obvious, picking up a yellow card at the end of the first half. Goalie Mckenna Zinke had a strong performance with 10 saves on 20 shots.
Johnee Wolter, Godleski, and Garcia each finished with four goals and Jillie Klumbach was efficient with three on four shots.
With the win, the Pirates improve to 2-2 on the season and will travel on March 2 for a conference road game against Dallas on Saturday, March 2 at 1:00 p.m.