VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. – Led by four-point days by Maggie Hartnett (Hebron, Maine) and Carm DeFeo (Shelton, Conn.), the Guilford College women's lacrosse team (3-9, 0-5 ODAC) put together their top showing in an Old Dominion Athletic Conference (ODAC) contest, but they faded late to fall to Virginia Wesleyan University (8-5, 4-2 ODAC) at Birdsong Field on Saturday evening.

The Marlins outshot the Quakers 30-15 and 21-10 in shots on target while also commanding the draw, with a 19-7 advantage, and ground balls, with a 20-12 edge, but they let GC hang around. In a really loose game, turnovers were 20-19 with Guilford committing more, but the real advantage was in net.

Sammy Keene (Greensboro, N.C.) did take the loss to fall to 2-6, but she far out-dueled her counterpart making nine saves against 16 goals allowed on the 30 shots sent her way, adding two caused turnovers and four groundballs.

On the other side of the ledger, Melissa Dolt made just four stops against seven goals on the 15 shots she faced, but despite that she improved to 8-5.

Hartnett was solid offensively for the Quakers with a trio of goals and one helper, but she also committed seven turnovers. DeFeo evenly split her points between goals and assists while Emma Garland (Hampstead, N.C.) netted a pair of tallies adding two caused turnovers and a groundball. Natalia Rubio (Greensboro, N.C.) caused two turnovers and had two groundballs as well.

Madison Pfister led the VWU offense with five goals and an assist while adding six draw controls. Adrianna Gunther led all players with nine draw controls for the Marlins adding four points evenly divided between goals and assists. Creelyn Bastinelli pitched in a brace and a helper while Sophia Bourassa had three caused turnovers and groundballs.

The Quakers hung around in this one. Gunther opened the scoring about three-and-a-half minutes in before Hartnett drew a free-position chance on the left wing and went low-right for the score. The Marlins scored two with Shaunice Rone and Pfister contributing the tallies, but Guilford would not let things get out of control. When Garland caught a Hartnett feed coming off a screen on the left wing to get wide open in front, going bottom-right for the score, GC got within one and proved they would not go down quiet and prompted a timeout. After one, the tallies were 3-2 hosts.

Rotating from left-to-right across the arch before shooting back across her body to score into bottom-right, DeFeo evened the score to open the second stanza. VWU would reclaim the lead for good with Pfister and Gunther scoring 62 seconds apart then Kenna Duplechin got another. Hartnett cut the deficit back to two, catching just inside arch straight-away before turning off a defender and working through attempted Marlin double-team before shooting bottom-left for her second tally. Pfister scored on a man-up chance before GC countered again as this time, on a broken play, the ball just kind of found the stick of Garland who then shot low-middle for score, bringing the halftime totals to 7-5.

Unfortunately, the Quakers ran out of steam in the second half as VWU scored four unanswered to open the third, although DeFeo would do it herself for a goal late in the frame. Then, opening the fourth, DeFeo fount Hartnett who made a quick juke and shot low-right side for score from just beyond the crease to make it a four-goal game. However, Virginia Wesleyan rattled off the final five consecutively to bring the final score to 16-7.

Guilford returns to Appenzeller Field to clash with Randolph College on Wednesday, April 9^th for their next matchup beginning at 4:00 PM.

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