WHITTIER, Calif. Whitman College's women's lacrosse program continues to reverse results from its previous season, this time flipping host Whittier College on its heels in the Blues' 10-9 non-conference victory Thursday on the Poets' home turf at Memorial Field.
Whitman (5-5) traveled to Whittier (1-6) last spring and was dealt a 23-7 defeat. And earlier this season the Blues earned a one-goal victory over one of the 2016 co-champs of the Northwest Conference, another team Whitman had never beaten.
Thursday's game turned on a 10-minute segment in the second half, during which the Blues were relentless in their attacking third.
Emily Hansen had just scored her third goal of the day, putting the Poets up 8-5 with 25 minutes to play.
The next 10 minutes were all Whitman, in non-stop attack mode. Like piranha on a feeding frenzy it reeled off 17 shots to only one from Whittier, and scored five unanswered goals to wrest the lead away from the stunned home team.
Four different Blues notched goals during that five-goal explosion, initiated by
Maddie Florer's unassisted tally.
Nina Moore was next, followed by
Lindsay Schwartz then
Anna Melville. Schwartz closed the streak with her fourth of the game and 33rd of the year.
A goal from Emily Hansen, a Poets draw control win and a free-position shot in the final 58 seconds made for an exciting end to the game, but a Whitman team save on the free-position attempt with 16 seconds left finally put the kibosh on Whittier's come-back hopes.
In Whitman's seven-goal second half it racked up 24 shots and limited the Poets to just eight.
Along with four goals from Schwartz the Blues picked up two from Melville, two from
Mary Noyes and the single tallies by Moore and Florer.
Whitman came out on top in the battle at ground level, 30-27, despite Whittier's Jess Hansen scooping up a game-high 10 ground balls.
Nine different players accumulated at least one caused turnover for Whitman, which forced 21 turnovers in all from the Poets.
The Blues have a short break before their next game on March 25, a non-conference, neutral-site contest against Carthage (Wis.) College at Linfield College's turf field in McMinnville, Oregon.
