In what began as a defensive battle from both teams, the Massachusetts women’s lacrosse team found its footing in the waning minutes of the third period, taking down the Saint Joseph’s Hawks 16-11.

At Garber Field, UMass (3-4, 2-0 Atlantic 10) faced Saint Joseph’s (3-4, 1-1 A-10) in a relentless fight from both sides.

UMass started early jumping to a 2-0 lead. Skylar Simmonds started the scoring early on for the Minutewomen earning a hat trick in the first period.

Into the second period, after a Minutewomen score, the Hawks answered, going on a three-goal run to close the period and tie the game at five goals apiece. Saint Joseph’s took control of the middle of the field by causing turnovers and capitalizing on free position shot attempts. It was apparent that UMass’ defensive play alone would not be enough to earn the win.

Catrina Tobin finished the game with eight saves on 19 shots on goal. While the percentage shows a different picture, Tobin came up big on free position shots, and overall shut down major Saint Joseph scoring runs.

With under five minutes to go in the third period, the UMass offense finally clicked. Led by Charlotte Wilmoth scoring in an undermanned situation, UMass scored four out of the last five goals closing out the period and never looked back.

“It just showed a gut belief in each individual in the attacking end,” head coach Jana Drummond said. “I think that’s one of the biggest things is just that mentality of if you know believe in yourself and trusting each other, and it’ll all come up to play, and they were just so selfless. It was very exciting for every single person out there versus just ‘me’ attitude. It was a very powerful seven working together.”

Additionally, Kassidy Morris had her sixth game in a row Saturday scoring a hat trick. An unbelievable benchmark for the redshirt sophomore, but when asking Drummond about her recent success, she credited the play in a different direction.

“I think she just is so smart and the offensive just knowing their time in each [player] is buying into their role which is letting [Morris] set up. But if [she] is not there, you’ve got [Delaney Rodriguez-Shaw], you’ve got [Fiona McGowan], you’ve got all these other personnel out there that are helping keep that flow dynamic,” Drummond said.

Drummond credits Morris, as well as the rest of the team for the scoring spree. With a strong showing of weathering adversity from an offensive standpoint, it was clear that this was a performance to build on.

“It’s getting back out there on Monday and giving exactly what we just gave [Saturday] moving forward. I think it’s really using this as a confidence booster and just chip away. So using that, come Monday, Saint Josephs is in the past we are onto La Salle, focusing on that, but the most important thing is that we just focus on us and keep ourselves at a consistent pace throughout the rest of the season,” Drummond said.

UMass looks to continue its two game winning streak against A-10 rival La Salle on Wednesday at 2 p.m. The game can be watched on ESPN+.

Mehrob Fatemi can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @MehrobFatemi