Story by Tim O'Brien

RICHMOND, Indiana - The Wilmington College women's lacrosse team won Wednesday 8-4 night against Earlham College. With this win, the Wilmington Fightin' Quakers add to the lead in the Quaker Bowl by a score of 8-2. Wilmington will travel to the University of Mount Union for this season's first Ohio Athletic Conference (OAC) contest on Saturday, March 24 at 1 p.m.

Wilmington found itself in a tightly contested game against Earlham in the early-going. The Fightin' Quakers opened up the game with a quick score from Becca Petra in the first two minutes. Earlham answered with a goal of its own 30 seconds later to tie the game 1-1. Wilmington answered with a 2-0 scoring run to increase the lead to 3-1. Earlham answered back yet again 30 seconds later to go down one goal again. Earlham and Wilmington traded goals to end the half with a score of 4-3.

The second half was a defensive effort for a majority of the period. The first 15 minutes went scoreless until Wilmington's Petra was able to get the Fightin' Quakers on the board with her third goal of the game. Rachel Reinhart added a second goal in the half at the seven-minute mark to add to Wilmington's lead and put the game out of reach.

Wilmington's offense was led Petra with three goals on 16 shots. Reinhart added two goals on six shots. Defensively, Abby Englehart picked up eight ground balls while goalie, Megan Wieloch, made 11 saves on the evening.

As a team, Wilmington held a 37-21 edge in shots along with grabbing 28 ground balls to Earlham's 18.

Wilmington (2-5) will travel to Mount Union on Saturday, March 24 for this season's first conference game. The game is scheduled to begin at 1 p.m.