BLOOMINGTON, Ill. -- The Illinois Wesleyan women's lacrosse team and the St. Mary's College Belles faced off on Saturday, April 1 in support of Lax 4 Life, a national lacrosse campaign to provide and support programs geared towards adolescent and young adult suicide prevention awareness. IWU came away victorious in the match, defeating the Belles by a final score of 17-8.

With a win the Titans improved their overall record on the season to 7-4, while St. Mary's fell to 3-5 with the loss.

IWU was hot out of the gate, scoring four goals in the first five minutes of action. Senior Maggie Krause assisted on three of the Titans first four goals, and finished the day with five assists and one goal overall to tie for the team lead in points. A goal from St. Mary's midfielder Mary Singler cut the Titan lead to 5-3 with 9:19 left to play in the first, but that was the closest the Belles would get for the remainder of the game.

Illinois Wesleyan opened the second half on another four-goal run to take a commanding 12-4 lead. Sophomore Grainne Kelly scored the first two goals of the second half, and scored five overall to pace the Titans goal scoring efforts on Saturday. Kelly also led the team in draw controls, with six wins on the afternoon.

Also with multi-goal efforts for IWU were sophomore's Sara Dust (3), Dani Engelbreit (2), Sam Bidlack (2) and Claudia Richman (2). Engelbreit and Bidlack each tallied three assists alongside their two goal efforts. IWU out-shot St. Mary's 28-22 including a 23-17 advantage for shots on goal.

In goal for IWU, junior Claire Quist earned the victory by recording a game-high nine saves on 22 shots faced.

St. Mary's was led offensively by Singler who notched three points with two goals and an assist. Also scoring for the Belles was sophomore Kate Kelly, twin sister of IWU's Grainne Kelly.

What's Next?
IWU opens their conference season on the road against Augustana College on Saturday, April 8 at 1 p.m. The Vikings currently hold a record of 3-5 after dropping their last game to Wittenberg by a final score of 15-9.