EDWARDSVILLE, Pa. — The Wilkes University women’s lacrosse team took on the Mount Saint Vincent Dolphins Thursday night at Schmidt Stadium in a non-conference game. The Colonels won 10-6, which improved their record.

The Colonels record going into the game was 5-2 while the Dolphins record was 2-1.

Prior to Thursday’s game, senior Kyra Boccio was named the Middle Atlantic Conference (MAC) Freedom offensive player of the week. This was her second time winning the award this season.

“It felt awesome. It was a goal I had coming into the season,” Boccio said.

For Thursday’s game, the goalkeeper for Wilkes was Sarah Carlini. Mount Saint Vincent sent Allyson Weakliem to defend their net.

Thursday’s game started out relatively fast paced with a lot of great passes for both teams. Wilkes took an early lead though.

Ashley Burkhardt put Wilkes on the board with a goal at the 26:59 mark in the first half, giving Wilkes some momentum.

Less than a minute later, the Colonels increased their lead with a goal from Domenica Lerch making it 2-0. 

Allyson Joly scored for Wilkes a few minutes later giving Wilkes a 3-0 lead and prompting the Dolphins to call a timeout.

A short time later, the Dolphins gained possession of the ball and had some great shots. They even put one past Carlini, but the referee ruled no goal.

The score stayed at 3-0 for the next ten minutes of game time until Burhardt scored another goal the Colonels scored another goal making it 4-0. This was Burkhardt’s second goal of the game.

The Dolphins finally put themselves on the board at the 10:03 mark of the first half with a goal from Veronica Sevivas making the game 4-1.

Boccio answered for Wilkes less than a minute later as the Colonels increased their lead once more making it 5-1.

Lerch and Boccio each added another goal for Wilkes to take a 7-1 lead into halftime. The Colonels had the advantage in shots as well, leading that category 16-10.

Before the start of the second half, Wilkes coach Burkarth urged her players to “pick up the intensity because the team could easily come back and score a lot on us.” That’s exactly what the Dolphins did in the second half of the game.

Paulina Mandujano took advantage of a man- up situation less than three minutes into the second half and scored for the Dolphins making it 7-2.

Boccio was able to get the goal back for the Colonels, getting the lead back up to a six-points.

The Colonels continued to add to their lead as Boccio scored her fourth goal with 9:14 remaining in the game making it 9-2.

The Dolphins started to pick up the pace as they sensed the clock winding down.

 Mount Saint Vincent’s Sevivas scored her second goal of the game with 7:26 to go making the score 9-3. Mandujano also scored her second goal of the game with about six minutes remaining making the score 9-4.

The Colonels still had the lead, but the Dolphins had a lot of momentum going. A comeback seemed like a possibility, especially when Amy Cohen scored another goal for the Dolphins with 5:47 remaining in the game making it 9-5.

With 3:24 to go, Sierra Duman was able to score another goal for the Colonels with an assist from Laura Singleton making it 10-5.

Mount Saint Vincent’s Caitlin Elia scored with 2:56 remaining in the game making it 10-6.

Despite strong efforts from both teams following that goal, the score remained 10-6 at the end of the game giving Wilkes the win and improving their record.

Wilkes will be back at home on Wednesday Apr. 3 at 5 p.m. in a conference game against rival school King’s College at Schmidt Stadium.

“We’ll focus on playing a full, intense sixty-minute game,” junior Gracie Franco said.