COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (March 17, 2023) – The final game of its Spring Break trip saw the Denison University women's lacrosse team fall 17-9 to the hosts from Colorado College on Friday at Washburn Field.

It was the first game between Denison (2-5 overall) and Colorado College (5-3) since back-to-back one-goal wins for the Big Red over the Tigers in the 2013 and 2014 seasons.

Colorado College, which was receiving votes in the first two ILWomen/IWLCA Division III Polls of the regular season, was coming off a 17-14 loss at home against St. Mary's College of Maryland on Wednesday while the Big Red were coming off a 16-9 win over St. Mary's on Monday.

It was a rough first quarter for Denison, which fell behind 5-0 to the Tigers and trailed 6-1 after an opening 15 minutes where Colorado College outshot the Big Red 11-6 overall and 9-3 on goal.

It was then a 9-1 deficit halfway through the second quarter before three straight Big Red goals by Mary Martinson, Jane Bailey and Maddie Morrell to make it 9-4 with just under six minutes left until halftime.

Denison would get back to within five of Colorado College twice in the third quarter before three straight goals by the Tigers in the final four minutes of the period all but put it out of reach for the Big Red, who were unable to make any saves as a team in the second half.

Morrell scored her second free position goal of the game to make it 14-7 after three quarters, but the Tigers limited the Big Red to just three shots in the fourth quarter and kept them off the scoreboard until the final five minutes of the game when Josie Lucchesi scored and was followed just over a minute later by a free position goal from Maddie Van Slyke to make it 16-9.

Merrill Rollhaus led Denison with 10 draw controls while Kate Coward and Emma Repke both had two caused turnovers.

Denison will return to action at 12 p.m. on Saturday, March 25, for a tough neutral-site matchup against No. 5 nationally-ranked Salisbury University in Newport News, Virginia.