ANGOLA, Ind.-- The Trine women's lacrosse team picked up its first MIAA win of the season with a 12-8 victory over Adrian Saturday afternoon in Fred Zollner Athletic Stadium.
The Thunder took the lead just under four minutes into the contest and never trailed the rest of the afternoon. Elena Gallego (Norwalk, Calif./Santa Fe) scored a career-high three goals, while Taylor Gast (Akron, Ind./Tippecanoe Valley) also notched three tallies and added an assist to lead the Trine attack. Gast moved into fifth in school-history in points and goals with the effort. Alex Branum scored two goals and dished out three assists to lead the Bulldogs. The Thunder improved to 4-6 overall, 1-5 in the MIAA. Adrian fell to 0-9 overall and 0-5 in conference play.
Nikkolette Makaryk (Joliet, Ill./Minooka), Hunter Johnson (Millbury, Ohio/Lake) and Rebecca Plantz (DeWitt, Mich./DeWitt) each scored twice to account for the rest of Trine's scoring. Johnson added an assist and caused three turnovers. Emily Griffin (Oak Forest, Ill./Carl Sundburg) caused a team-high four turnovers. Grace Garrett (Carmel, Ind./Carmel) made seven saves in net.
Michelle Sandlin scored three times, while Mariesa Johnson scored twice and Annika Nuler added a goal for the Bulldogs. Sandlin got the Bulldogs on the board first just 16 seconds into the contest to give Adrian an early lead.
The Thunder responded with four-straight to seize control. Gallego and Makaryk scored a minute and a half apart to give Trine the lead. Gallego then made a nice one-on-one move for her second goal of the game, which Gast followed with a free-position goal to give the Thunder a 4-1 lead.
Adrian fought back to cut the deficit to one twice, but Trine scored five-straight over a span of 13 minutes to push the lead to seven. Johnson scored the first two goals of the run to push the halftime lead to 8-5, including one off a nice pass from Gast.
Plantz, Makaryk and Gast extended Trine's lead to six with unassisted goals early in the second half. Gallego then took a quick pass from Johnson in close to the goal and beat the goalkeeper for the final Trine goal of the game. Gallego's final tally pushed the score to 12-5.
Johnson scored twice and Sandlin added a goal in the final 12 minutes, but it wasn't enough as the Thunder closed out the victory. The win was Trine's first in MIAA play since April 25, 2013.
Trine will return to action Tuesday, April 23 at Albion. Game time is set for 7 p.m.