April 1, 2017 - While the victories over Trine University and Olivet College were important ones for the Concordia-Chicago women's lacrosse team, today's 16-6 victory over Monmouth College will be remembered for a long time. That's because the Cougars' third win of the season and in their two-year history was also the first in front of the home crowd within the familiar confines of Concordia Stadium.

Of the team's home win, as well as its first in Midwest Women's Lacrosse Conference play. CUC head coach Brian Patterson said, "It was a long time in coming.  We put up with a winless year last year which hurt our egos, but with the effort we put in during the off-season and in practices, we can use this win as motivation and know that we can be a viable tean in this conference."

Margaret Doane, one of three multi-goal scorers on the day, opened the scoring 50 seconds into the contest. The Cougars then had their only anxious moments of the day as Monmouth's Kara-Jade Gordon scored two of her five goals to give the visitors their only lead of the game at 2-1.

Sydney Fuller began the Cougars' resurgence with a strike just 87 seconds after Monmouth scored. Then, after Doane's second restored the lead to the home side, Fuller fed Anna Kellar for two goals just 30 seconds apart. Doane kept things going with her third goal of the match, and Sonja Sorensen completed the 6-0 run with a free-position shot. The Cougars owned a 7-2 lead, all with 20:52 remaining in the first half.

The visitors attempted a comeback as Mikayla Shaw and Gordon scored to cut CUC's lead down to three. But Kellar completed her hat trick, and Fuller added her second of the match to put the lead back to five as the first half wound to an end.

Doane and Fuller struck in the first 10 minutes of the second half as the Cougars looked to pull away. The Fighting Scots made one more surge as Gordon scored her fourth and fifth goals of the day, but it would be all Cougars for the final 12 minutes. Kellar added a second-half hat trick, one of them on a man-up situation, and Doane finished off a five-goal performance with two more. 

Concordia-Chicago finished with 37 shots to Monmouth's 18. Krystal Phillips, who entered the game among the national leaders in saves and saves per game, made eight stops to lead the defensive effort.

The Cougars (3-8) will jump back into action on Sunday afternoon at 1:00 when they host CArroll University.