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Kenyon College Athletics

Nola Garand
Sejin Kim
8
Winner Kenyon College KENW 8-0
7
Chicago UC 5-2
Winner
Kenyon College KENW
8-0
8
Final
7
Chicago UC
5-2
Score By Periods
Team 1 2 3 4 F
Kenyon College KENW 2 2 1 3 8
Chicago UC 3 1 0 3 7

Game Recap: Women's Lacrosse |

Owls top No. 14 Maroons, earn another signature win

CHICAGO -- With Sunday's 8-7 victory over the No. 14-ranked University of Chicago Maroons, the Kenyon College women's lacrosse team continued to make believers out of doubters. The win against a nationally-ranked opponent was the Owls' second in less than two weeks.

The result moved Kenyon's season record to 8-0. That's the best start to a season since the 2010 team also broke out of the gates with an 8-0 mark.

The loss dropped the Maroons to 5-2 after they opened the season with five consecutive victories. The Chicago team is coming off a 2022 season in which it produced an 18-2 record and advanced to the third round of the NCAA Division III Tournament.

As the score would indicate, defensive play prevailed for the majority of the game.

Chicago took early control, moving ahead 1-0 and then 3-1, but Kenyon never let the Maroons out of reach, as Caroline O'Neil tallied two scores to bring the game to 3-2 at the end of the first quarter.

After yielding three goals on nine shots in that opening frame, the Kenyon defense tightened things up in the second quarter, allowing just six shots and one goal, while goalkeeper Nola Garand made five saves in the frame.

On the attack, Kenyon again looked to O'Neil, who gathered in an assist from Tatumn Eccleston and pumped in her third goal of the game, tying things up with 8:17 remaining in the second quarter.

A little less than seven minutes later, Ella Murphy created some space on the right wing, fired one into the lower left corner of the Maroons' cage, and gave Kenyon its first lead of the contest at 4-3 with 1:37 left to go in the second quarter. Chicago, however, needed less than a minute to answer the goal and sent the game into the break knotted up at 4-4.

Starting out second-half action, Spencer Kirsch put Kenyon back in front, creating her shot from the right side and from close range. That goal stood as the only one of the quarter.

The Maroons then ended their scoring drought, which spanned 20 minutes, at the 10:35 point of the fourth quarter. A loose ball at the left side of the Kenyon goal was picked off the turf by Olivia Hung, who quickly slipped her shot past Garand to tie the game back up at 5-5.

From there, both offenses picked up the pace and the game went back-and-forth over the final 10 minutes.

On Kenyon's next possession, a shot from Mallory Brophy pinged off the Chicago post. Kate Lengel scooped up the ground ball, made a couple of inside-outside cuts and whistled her shot past Chicago goalkeeper Rachel Keefe. Again, though, Chicago had an answer, scoring just 17 seconds after Lengel's goal to square the game, 6-6, with 8:25 left on the game clock. The Maroons then tacked on another goal, this one from Zoe Torok, and regained the lead for the first time since early in the second quarter.

About four minutes later, Lengel, again, had possession in the Maroons' zone and she, again, made the same moves to score at the 4:05 mark, tying things back up at 7-7.

With 2:12 left on the game clock, Brophy launched a free-position shot that found net and held up as the game-winning goal.

Chicago brought more pressure over the final two minutes and had a couple opportunities to tie the game yet again, but the Kenyon defense stood firm, including a Garand save on a point-blank shot from Torok with 1:15 left. Garand wound up with both a season- and career-high 17 saves.

Offensively, O'Neil's three goals and three points stood as game-highs. Brophy not only scored the game-winner, but did plenty of the dirty work, forcing three turnovers, grabbing five ground balls, and winning three draw controls.
 
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