The Quad

Issue date: 4/14/08 Section: Sports

West Chester women's lacrosse continued to live up to their billing as a national powerhouse with three blowout victories this week. Currently sitting at number number in the country with a 10-1 record, the Lady Rams are plowing their way through the opposition due to great offense and solid goaltending.

The first came on Monday, April 7 when the Lady Rams went to visit East Stroudsburg. The 23-5 pounding of the Lady Warriors was the girls seventh consecutive double digit point victory at the time. Attacker Stephanie Kienle who scored three goals led the offense. Also joining her in the hat trick department were teammates Jackie Baker, Claire Grimwood and Jen Forney.

Baker and Forney each had an assist as well to co-lead the team in points on the day with four a piece. Goal keeper Mary Beth Green faced the most shots (11) she had all year and only yielded five goals all day. The game was all West Chester from the get-go as the Lady Rams stormed out to a 10-0 lead and were up by as many as 19 (20-1) at one point.

Game two was a different day with the same story for the Lady Rams as Wednesday, April 9 turned into another blowout, this time at the hands of an extremely formidable opponent. Gannon University visited the campus of the purple and gold ranked number seven in the country. After West Chester went on the road and beat Gannon 9-8 on their turf last year, the Lady Knights came to West Chester looking for revenge.

However the girls were up to the task as they opened up a quick 4-0 lead within the games first three minutes. Kienle had a game high 11 points (five goals and six assists), however Baker stole the show with a career high nine goals on the day en route to a 24-7 thumping in favor of the Lady Rams. Green again faced very few shots as she stopped five of 12 shots on the afternoon.

The outcome of this game however was not expected, least of all to Lady Rams head coach Ginny Martino who has seen Gannon put up fights much stronger than this in years past.

"We came out fired up which is always key," Martino said. "Whenever you put a team back on its heels like that you are going to have a successful day. We definitely set the tempo, we controlled the ball for a lot of the game and Gannon is a good team so I am really proud of our team for coming out hard and sticking with the game plan."

Because Gannon is a national powerhouse, in addition to a regional threat to the Lady Rams, team leader Jackie Baker saw both herself and her teammates step up in a huge way against a stout opponent.

Continued...

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