By Mitch Blankespoor
AURORA, Ill. – The Kalamazoo College women's lacrosse team is yet to lose a varsity contest. After defeating Benedictine (Ill.) yesterday, Kalamazoo defeated Aurora University 11-6 Sunday, Mar. 9, to return home 2-0 on the young season.
After Aurora opened the scoring in the eighth minute, Kalamazoo Anika Sproull scored two goals unassisted in a four-minute span to give Kalamazoo its first lead of the game.
Alivia DuQuet scored at the 9:18 mark of the first half and Anna Dairaghi followed with a goal five minutes later.
Kenney Hughes would score for Aurora to make the score 4-2, but Sproull found the back of the net with 2:50 remaining in the first half to complete the hat trick and send Kalamazoo into halftime with a 5-2 lead.
Aurora would not get closer than three goals. The two teams each scored twice in the first 15 minutes of the second half. With the score 7-4, Kalamazoo pulled away scoring four of the game's final six goals en route to the victory.
"It feels great to come away with two wins this weekend," Kalamazoo Head Coach Emilia Ward said. "Our defense was extremely strong today."
Indeed it was. Goalie Regina Scala made 12 saves on 17 shots in the contest. Sproull followed up her five-goal performance yesterday with a six-goal game against Aurora. The freshman now has 11 collegiate goals in two games. Dairaghi added a hat trick of her own on just four shots.
Both teams were efficient on the clear. Kalamazoo converted 19-24 clear attempts while Aurora was 13-15. Kalamazoo held a slight advantage in shots (26-22), draw controls (11-7), and saves (13-12).
Aurora held a distinct advantage 23-13 in ground balls.
Kalamazoo returns to action Mar. 13 for its first home game against Augustana (Ill.).