The Massachusetts women’s lacrosse team dominated Holy Cross 21-8 on Tuesday night. After a slow start to the game, the Minutewomen (2-2) found their groove and never looked back.

Cheers erupted on the field with just under six minutes left in the third quarter, when junior Jeilinne Bonilla scored her first career goal.

Freshman Etta Coburn also found the back of the net for the first time in her career. The midfielder found open space in front of Crusaders (3-2) goaltender Sarah Knice and caught a quick feed from Ava Connaughton just behind the goal line. Coburn immediately redirected the ball down, sending a bounce shot into the bottom right corner of the net.

“It’s amazing. The team goes absolutely crazy on the sideline, and everyone is jumping up and down and I think that’s just the calmness of the leadership,” head coach Jana Drummond said. “They’re trusting the process, they’re trusting what our scout is, trusting what the game plan is. The more that that shows through, the more success they’ll see. We had a lot of different goal scorers today and that shows the versatility on offense but also the confidence in each other to do well.”

Connaughton led UMass with six points on three goals and three assists. The attacker’s fake high and shoot low tactic proved to be successful in all three of her goals. Connaughton’s other two helpers assisted Kassidy Morris and Lauren Tolve.

“You have to just let [Connaughton] be [herself] because she’s so creative and she’s playing loose, she’s awesome,” Drummond said. “With her creativity, her high IQ, being able to connect with the players on and off the field really shows from her, so it was great to see her doing well and trusting herself.”

Kassidy Morris and Delaney Rodriguez-Shaw both scored first half hat tricks and ended Tuesday’s game with five and four goals respectively. Rodriguez-Shaw scored the tying goal four minutes into the second quarter. The senior started moving to the right of the arc, but quickly cut back towards the center, sending the ball into the left side of the net.

Tessa Shields netted the go-ahead goal just one minute after Rodriguez-Shaw’s equalizer. With the ball behind the net, Shields ran around the right side of the crease, turned to face the goal and jumped while shooting to get around the defender. After taking the lead, the Minutewomen kept their momentum going and the Crusaders failed to adjust.

On the defensive end, Catrina Tobin remained strong between the pipes. The senior finished the contest with six saves. Heather Clark also made some important plays to prevent Holy Cross from getting many scoring chances.

“[Clark] is a big vocal leader down [on defense], so with her connections with everyone on the field and her calm play, it really mellows the defense out that it connects them in that really important unity that we need on the defensive end,” Drummond said.

The Crusaders were led in points by Isabela Miller with four. Ella Kittregde, Riley Peters and Sally Zinsner all scored two goals. Zinsner was looking for a third to reach the 100-goal milestone, but an unrelenting UMass defense prevented it.

Holy Cross started the contest strong, scoring five of their eight goals in the first quarter. UMass struggled offensively at the beginning, unable to clear the ball and transition up the field. The Minutewomen only controlled two of the nine draws during the first quarter.

“It was just carry with confidence, push the pace, we are a fast team so we can use that speed to our advantage and take care of the ball and run it up the field,” Drummond said. “If we get the ball in the offense’s hands, we’ll get a lot of looks there, so for us it was just playing fast and trusting ourselves to carry the ball.”

Penalties swamped the Crusaders, who received six yellow cards compared to the Minutewomen’s one. UMass scored six woman-up goals throughout the contest with Morris netting four. Kittredge was the only player to receive two yellow cards during the game.

The Minutewomen continue their road trip on Saturday, March 1 against UConn. The game is set to start at 1 p.m.

“We definitely got ourselves in a groove and were just playing as a team and really playing for each other,” Drummond said. “It was a really great team win as a group, as one.”

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