Chicago, Ill. - A short-handed Illinois Tech women's lacrosse team and their opponent, Beloit College, were each looking for their first conference win Thursday night at Stuart Field. But when the clock hit 0:00 at the end of the match, it was the visiting Buccaneers who came away with the victory, defeating the Scarlet Hawks 18-11. The Scarlet Hawks dropped to 3-8 overall and 0-2 in NACC play. Beloit evened their overall record at 5-5 and their conference record to 1-1.

Beloit's Johanna McNair tallied 11 points for the Buccaneers on 5 goals and 6 assists. Kelly Hitchcock paced the Scarlet Hawks with 6 goals.

The Scarlet Hawks played the entire match down one player, and had to make a last-minute change to swap a defender and an attacker due to a pre-game injury to another player. The Buccaneers were able to exploit their player-up advantage as the game progressed, and took advantage of 22 Illinois Tech turnovers to expand their lead.

First Quarter (Beloit 4 - Illinois Tech 3)
Hitchcock opened the scoring for the Scarlet Hawks, scoring unassisted 43 seconds into the match. McNair got the equalizer for Beloit with an unassisted tally of her own at 11:05. The Hawks would tally the next two goals in the quarter. Faith Busche scored at 8:53, and 35 seconds later Isabelle Niebler scored her first career goal on a feed from Busche to put the Hawks out front 3-1. Beloit would respond by scoring the next three goals in the quarter, including a McNair goal with one second left after an Illinois Tech turnover with ten seconds remaining. 

Second Quarter (Beloit 4 - Illinois Tech 3)
The Scarlet Hawks regained the lead early in the second quarter, with Hitchcock scoring a pair of goals in the first five minutes(both assisted by Busche), including a player-up goal at 10:14, for a 5-4 Illinois Tech lead. Beloit answered back by scoring four unanswered goals, including a pair by Beloit's Maggie Mudd at 1:50 and 1:33. Mya Huddleston snapped the Buccaneers scoring streak with a free position goal at 1:14 to cut the Scarlet Hawks' deficit to 8-6 going into halftime.

Third Quarter (Beloit 5 - Illinois Tech 3)
Beloit expanded their lead to 10-6 with a pair of goals in the first three minutes of the third quarter on individual tallies by Mudd and Maya DeGeorge. Hitchcock got one of the goals back when she took a feed from Busche and scored at 11:28. Beloit responded with three goals in three minutes, with Mudd scoring a pair, and Daisy Kleinhoffer at 7:19, to give the Buccaneers' a 13-7 lead. The Hawks' would cut their deficit to 13-9 when Antonia Martinez scored unassisted at 5:55, followed by another free position goal by Huddleston during a player-up situation at 4:06.

Fourth Quarter (Beloit 5 - Illinois Tech 2)
Beloit outscored the Scarlet Hawks 5-2 in the final quarter, with DeGeorge adding three more tallies, to go along with individual scores from Kleinhoffer and McNair. Hitchcock scored twice in the fourth quarter for Illinois Tech.

Scarlet Hawk Standouts

• Kelly Hitchcock paced the Scarlet Hawks with 6 goals(on 7 shots on goal), 4 ground balls and 13 draw controls.
• Faith Busche finished with 6 points on 1 goal and 5 assists, to go along with a ground ball and two draw controls.
• Mya Huddleston with a pair of goals.
• Isabelle Niebler with her first career goal.
• Caitlin Davitt with 15 saves and 4 ground balls in the match.

Buccaneers Watch

• Johanna McNair led all scorers with 11 points in the match, including 5 goals and 6 assists. She also recovered four ground balls and 3 draw controls.
• Maggie Mudd had 8 points on 6 goals and 2 assists, while generating 3 caused turnovers.
• Maya DeGeorge with 5 points on 4 goals and 1 assist, to go along with 3 ground balls and 3 draw controls.
• Elbieta Patapaite with 4 ground balls.

Inside The Box Score

• Beloit outshot Illinois Tech 43-28.
• Illinois Tech had 22 turnovers in the match to just 8 for Beloit.
• Illinois Tech was 2-2 on free position shots, while Beloit was 0-3.
• Illinois Tech won the draw control battle 19-10.
• The Buccaneers had a 16-12 advantage in ground balls.

Up Next
The Scarlet Hawks will travel to Madison, Wisconsin this Saturday, April 13th, when they take on an Edgewood team that has started out 2-0 in NACC play. First draw is scheduled for 3:00 PM.