Charlottesville, Va. – No. 10 Virginia closed Sunday's women's lacrosse game with three straight goals to pull away late in an 18-12 victory over Elon. Elon drops to 3-3 on the season while Virginia improves to 6-0 for the first time since 2007.
 
A week after recording her first career hat trick, sophomore Catherine Merritt set a new career-best with five goals and six points. Freshman Anna Hackett earned her third hat trick of the season and 10 of the team's 12 goals were scored by freshmen or sophomores.
 
HOW IT HAPPENED

• Virginia scored the first three goals of the game and the last three. In between, the two teams went nose-to-nose, scoring 12 apiece.
• After Virginia's 3-0 start, Elon settled in and scored the next two goals.
• Midway through the second, Kaley Ehnow and Cierra Hopson scored 57 seconds apart to tie the game at 6-6.
• Virginia ended the opening half with a 3-0 spurt for a 9-6 halftime lead.
• Elon, though, would not go away and the Phoenix got early third period goals from Sammy Fisher and Anna Hackett to make it 9-8.
• Over a five-minute stretch, Virginia scored four in a row to build a 13-8 lead and a cushion Elon was unable to overcome.
• Merritt scored twice in the fourth and her last score made it 15-12. But Virginia shut out Elon over the final seven minutes and finished with the 18-12 win.

 
NOTES AND STATS

• Merritt's five goals were a career-high and she has eight goals in the last two games after scoring just one goal in Elon's first four games.
• Hackett posted her third hat trick of the year with three goals and she added her first career assist. The four points tied her career-best point total against VCU.
• Elon held an 18-16 edge in draw controls. Julia Dalmass had a team-high eight, followed by Lila Ceribelli with six and Sammy Fisher with four.
• With one goal on the day, sophomore Cierra Hopson has 38 for her career, just two shy of breaking into Elon's career top 10 list.
• Virginia outshot Elon 29-25 and held a 24-15 edge in shots on goal.

 
UP NEXT

• Elon will host Virginia Tech Wednesday at 5 p.m. Virginia Tech is 1-4 to open the season but has faced three ranked teams, including No. 1 North Carolina and No. 2 Syracuse.