WASHINGTON, DC – Juniors Taylor Donohue (Villanova, PA/Radnor) and Mia Breheny (Alexandria, VA/Bishop Ireton) led nine different scorers with three goals apiece and the George Washington women's lacrosse team secured a bid to the 2009 Atlantic 10 Championship with a 16-4 rout of La Salle at Mount Vernon Field Sunday afternoon.

GW (5-11) earned the fourth and final spot in the A-10 Championship, to be held at Temple's Geasey Field April 24 and 26, due to its head-to-head tiebreaker with Duquesne. The Colonials and Dukes finished with identical 4-3 league records, but GW topped Duquesne, 18-9, March 27.

The No. 4 seed Colonials will face top-seeded and regular-season champion Massachusetts in the first semifinal Friday at 1:00 pm. Second-seeded Richmond will battle No. 3 seed Saint Joseph's in the second semifinal Friday at 3:30 pm, with the winners to meet for the A-10 title Sunday at 1:00 pm.

The A-10 Championship berth is GW's third in eight seasons all-time and first since 2007, when the Colonials split the regular-season title and reached the championship final.

GW wasted little time taking control of a game it needed to win to assure itself of a postseason berth, tallying the first five goals of the game and surrendering just one first-half goal to lead 6-1 at halftime.

After trading the opening goals of the second half, the Colonials went on an 8-1 run during a 20-minute span to surge ahead 15-3 en route to matching their most one-sided conference contest in the program history, equaling the 12-goal margin in a 17-5 victory over Saint Joseph's in April 2005.

Donohue scored a pair of goals in the first period and added another strike and three assists in the second half to finish with six points. Her first assist of the game to senior Katherine Sampson (Larchmont, NY/Mamaroneck) with 23:05 remaining broke the single-season school mark, which she now holds with 27 helpers so far this season. Breheny finished with four points via a hat trick and an assist, while Sampson (2g/1a), junior Audrey Joy (Winchester, MA/Winchester) (2g/1a) and freshmen Sarah Phillips (Downingtown, PA/Downingtown West) (1g/2a) and Allie Monticollo (Medford, NJ/Shawnee) (1g/2a) added four points apiece.

Sophomore goalkeeper Liz Hoffman (Owings Mills, MD/Beth Tfiloh) made two saves on 11 shots faced in 55 minutes and classmate Christine Lovett (Bel Air, MD/Bel Air) faced one shot over the final five minutes in goal.

Seniors Katherine Sampson, Katie Lilly (Riva, MD/South River), Alaska Burr (Marion, MA/Tabor Academy) and Meghan Cratty (Wilton, CT/Wilton) were recognized prior to their final game at Mount Vernon. Lilly won a game-high five draws, moving her into a tie for second all-time at GW with 89 career draw controls, and added three ground balls. Sampson had four ground balls and three caused turnovers to go along with three points.

La Salle, which finishes its season 4-11 overall and 1-6 in league play, was led by a goal and an assist from Jill Davis. Megan Corliss made six saves on 19 shots faced in 40 minutes between the pipes, while Mara Schnellenbach turned away one of nine shots faced.

GW forced 26 turnovers and held a 24-14 edge in ground balls.

2009-04-19