Even though the Massachusetts women’s lacrosse team ultimately fell 12-10 against Dartmouth College on Saturday, the Minutewomen (0-1) still put up a strong performance. Senior midfielder Lauren Tolve recorded her first career hat trick of the season against the Big Green (1-0).

With UMass trailing by four to start the fourth quarter, Tolve halved the deficit in under two and a half minutes. The Minutewomen started the final 15 minutes of the game with a woman-up advantage after a yellow card was issued to Dartmouth’s Boo Dewitt.

Standing in the center of the 8-meter arc, Tolve caught a pass from Delaney Rodriguez-Shaw and turned straight into a collision with defender Meriweather Florence before hitting the ground. Florence was issued a yellow card, giving UMass a two woman-up opportunity. Tolve took the free position shot from the center hash, running toward the goal while cradling the ball. The senior sent a low shot through the five-hole of goaltender Gisele Todd’s legs.

“Tolve’s been with us since [her] freshman year and she stepped into a captain’s role this year,” head coach Jana Drummond said. “She’s a natural leader, she’s someone that we use significantly on both ends of the field, from offense and defense and between the 30, so she’s someone we have running up and down the field and doing the most in that aspect.”

Less than two minutes later, Lil Hancock brought the ball outside of the 12-meter fan and passed to Rodriguez-Shaw to reset the Minutewomen’s offense. Rodriguez-Shaw sent the ball to Katie Peterson down behind the right of the goal line extended. Sitting at the top of the crease, Tolve caught Peterson’s pass and immediately fired the shot past Todd’s left shoulder, finding the back of the net for the third time during Saturday’s contest.

“Just to see her development, her maturity grow from freshman to senior year, she loves this program through and through,” Drummond said. “She would do anything for her teammates and they would do anything for her, so it’s just really awesome to see how she’s always put the team first and just really growing in her role at that.”

The Duxbury native netted her first goal on a feed from Rodriguez-Shaw with just under two minutes to go in the first quarter. Tolve lost the Big Green defender by running around teammate Kassidy Morris and picked up the quick pass from Rodriguez-Shaw outside the 12-meter fan. The midfielder turned and sent the ball into the top right corner of the goal before almost colliding with Dartmouth’s Maja Desmond.

“She’s just so scrappy,” Drummond said. “She’s got good 1-on-1 defense, her high IQ is in there so she’s able to shift and send the slide, and [she] also understands what goes wrong, what’s going well to help and lead in those [defensive] huddles, so she is just all over.”

Tolve finished last season with 10 goals and 10 assists, as well as 21 caused turnovers and 24 ground balls. The senior recorded two multi-goal games last season against George Mason and UMass Lowell, scoring two goals in each.

“A lot of times she isn’t always in the forefront because she does a lot of [things] in-the-mix, not [as] the leading goal scorer or leading [in] caused [turnovers] on defense,” Drummond said. “For her, she’s just all over the field and just really consistent in every role she’s given, so we’re just hoping to just keep her out there as long as we can [so she can] continue to do that.”

Devin Lippman can be reached at [email protected] and followed on X @devinlippman.