SPRINGFIELD, Ohio - Over the course of more than 40 years of women's lacrosse on the Wittenberg University campus, no Tiger team had ever reached the 25-goal mark - until tonight.
The Tigers scored early and often on North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC) rival DePauw in a 25-12 victory. Wittenberg's previous high for scoring output in a game was 23, achieved multiple times, including three times earlier in the 2014 season.
More importantly, Wittenberg won its 20th straight NCAC regular season game, dating back to the end of the 2011 season, and improved to 6-0 in the 2014 league title chase with two games left on the schedule. The Tigers will take on second-place Denison at 7 p.m. Friday, April 18, with a chance to clinch at least a share of the regular season championship.
Overall, Wittenberg is now 10-2 and ranked No. 3 in the first edition of the West Region rankings released earlier today. DePauw fell to 3-8 overall and 2-4 in the NCAC.
Thround the first five minutes, both sets of Tigers had scored twice, but that's when Wittenberg took control with four goals in a span of just 42 seconds. By halftime, the host Tigers had built a 17-8 lead, which would slowly expand over the final 30 minutes.
The final shots count was 49-25 in favor of the host Tigers. A whopping eight different Wittenberg players scored in the game, led by senior Francine Murzynski (Mentor, Ohio/Lake Catholic) with five goals and two assists, junior Logan Warye (Maineville, Ohio/Kings) with four goals and one assist, senior Alie Marousek (Ballston Lake, NY/Portsmouth (NH)) with three goals and two assists, and freshman Becca Joseph (Toledo, Ohio/St. Ursula) with four goals on just seven shots in the game.
Other stats of note in the final boxscore were four ground balls and seven draw controls for Murzynski, two ground balls and nine draw controls for sophomore Carrie Kubasta (Medina, Ohio/Medina), eight ground balls and three caused turnovers for Warye and eight saves from sophomore goalkeeper Katie Reuter (Cleveland, Ohio/Hathaway Brown).