It took some time, but the Massachusetts women’s lacrosse team has finally found its offensive groove.
After scoring 10 or more goals in its past three games, including 17 against George Mason on March 29, UMass defeated St. Bonaventure 18-8 Saturday afternoon for its highest total since the its season opener when it scored 18 against UMass Lowell.
The Minutewomen (10-1, 3-0 Atlantic 10) had five different players score at least two goals with a total of 11 scoring at least once. Hannah Murphy paced the offense with four tallies.
“I think that Hannah has been extremely dynamic for us. She’s one of the most athletic players on the field,” UMass coach Angela McMahon said. “She’s been putting in extra work on her shot and her dodging after practice and it’s nice too see it’s finally starting to pay off for her.”
Eileen McDonald, Katie Ott, Holly Turner and Callie Santos each finished with two goals. Erika Eipp, Nicole Troost, Maddie Ward, Amy Tiernan, Ashley Faulhaber and Katie Boden scored a goal as well.
“The biggest thing for us is that we are moving the ball better,” McMahon said. “A lot of different players got touches and that all starts with winning the draw control and causing turnovers.”
The Minutewomen opened the scoring with four consecutive goals before Kaitlin Jennings broke the Bonnies’ drought 12 minutes, 35 seconds into the half. UMass took a 12-4 lead heading into halftime after scoring eight goals in the final 17 minutes.
In total, the Minutewomen outshot St. Bonaventure 53-16. Bonnies goalkeeper Morgan Conroy finished with 16 saves in an active day.
Despite the lopsided victory, McMahon was not pleased with the quality of shots that UMass was getting and was disappointed in allowing eight goals. Both her and goalkeeper Rachel Vallarelli (five goals allowed, three saves) have made it an objective every game to keep opponents at four goals or less.
“I wasn’t happy with the eight goals allowed and a lot of that starts on the offensive end,” McMahon said. “It starts with us not converting on the offense and as a result of that we had to play too many defensive stands.
“Obviously I’m happy with the win but our goal is to keep teams to four goals or less, to have that be doubled (isn’t good). I think that starts on the offensive end and we have to do a better job executing.”
St. Bonaventure (1-10, 0-3 A10) got three goals from Rachel Perla and a pair from LeighAnn Stauffer. Three other Bonnies each had one goal.
The Minutewomen dominated in all aspects of the game, including groundballs (23-18), caused turnovers (20-10) and draw control wins (19-9) and were a perfect 7-for-7 on clear attempts.
Kate Farnham finished with five caused turnovers and five groundballs to lead the defense for UMass.
“Having 53 shots and only 18 saves put way too much on the defense,” McMahon said. “When we are holding teams to four goals or less it’s because our ball control is better and we are not playing as much defense.”
The Minutewomen have a break in their conference schedule as they host Vermont Wednesday before they finish the season with five straight A-10 games before the conference championships. McMahon said that the team will still treat Wednesday’s matchup as a conference game and that the approach is not different.
Wednesday’s game against the Catamounts starts at 3 p.m. at McGuirk Stadium.
Andrew Cyr can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @Andrew_Cyr.[liveblog]
