The Aquinas women's lacrosse team won the nonconference matchup over Kalamazoo in comeback fashion on Friday evening (Mar. 4) at the AQ Athletic Field. Cierra Davis scored the game winner with 2:55 remaining and the defense shut the door to prevent the Hornets from scoring in the 19-18 thriller.

AQ moves to 2-2 early on in the season as Kalamazoo suffers its first loss of the year and now stands at 2-1.

The Hornets were the first ones to put a goal on the board as they had a man advantage at the 11:15 mark in the first period and gained a 2-0 lead a minute later. Katelyn Hall and Cierra Davis responded with two goals for the Saints to tie the game back up with 5:21 remaining in the opening quarter. KC gained back the two goal advantage before Davis scored her second goal in the game with a man advantage. AQ trailed just 4-3 heading into the second period of play.

As opposed to the seven goals scored between the two teams in the first 15 minutes, the offense erupted in the second quarter with 17 goals being scored. In the first 1:15 of the quarter, Kennadie Minerich scored two goals and Alexis Villarini scored another for Aquinas to take a 6-4 lead. Rose Bogard of Kalamazoo answered with three goals of her own within the next minute of the contest. Minerich tied the game up briefly at seven, but the Hornets quickly took the lead back at the 11:26 mark. AQ scored three consecutive goals to take a two-goal advantage with 5:21 remaining in the half as Megan Moffat, Minerich, and McKenna Burke all scored. In the back-and-forth quarter, KC came back with three goals of its own to regain the lead. Even though Burke tied the game up at 11 with 2:43 left on the clock, the Hornets took a two-goal lead into halftime with the score reading 13-11.

Aquinas was able to gain separation in the third quarter by scoring the first six of seven goals. Minerich and Kalamazoo traded goals with just over 11 minutes to play, but the Saints then rattled off five goals in a row to go up 17-14. Burke, Minerich, Trinity Reynoso, Davis (man advantage), and Minerich again all scored for AQ. In the last minute and a half of the third period, the Hornets were able to squeak in two goals to cut the Aquinas advantage to one heading into the final quarter of play.

As the two teams wore out and the defensive intensity picked up, goals were much harder to come by in the fourth. Kalamazoo tied up the game early on and then took a 18-17 lead with 7:47 on the clock. Davis took over for the Saints by scoring the game tying goal at the 5:15 mark and the game winning goal with 2:55 left to play. AQ's defense clamped down from there by not allowing the Hornets to even get a shot off for the remainder of the game.

Davis led the team with nine points on five goals and four assists, while Minerich scored the most goals at seven and added an assist for eight points. Burke added another three goals as Villinari, Moffat, Hall, and Reynoso all also scored. Reynoso also ended the night with two assists with Emma Bailey collecting the other helper.

Jordan Gardner started the game in net for the Saints and was able to make eight saves, while allowing 13 goals. Azariah Wells played the second half and earned her first win of the season after making six stops and giving up five goals.

Aquinas had 23 of its 30 shots end up on the net as Kalamazoo saw 31 of its 39 total attempts on frame. The Saints had 17 clears compared to the Hornets' 13, while KC had more groundballs at 35-30.

AQ is next traveling down to Marietta, Georgia to play against Life University on Sunday (Mar. 6), beginning at 12:00 PM.