BLACKSBURG, Va. – Virginia Tech defeated Mount St. Mary's 20-9 in non-conference women's lacrosse action on Friday. Katelyn Catanese (Huntington, N.Y./St. Anthony's) notched a career-high three goals for the Mount (0-3) after posting two markers in the loss to No. 11 Johns Hopkins on Tuesday.

Jenna Duffy (Bel Air, Md./Catholic) and Rebecca Douglass (Towson, Md./Towson Catholic) each added a goal and two assists in the loss. Jackie Gray and Jenna Reich paced the Hokies (3-3) with four goals and one assist apiece.

Virginia Tech used five spurts of three-straight goals to jump out to the advantage and never looked back for its third-straight win against Mount St. Mary's. The Hokies began the game with a flurry of three-straight goals in the first two minutes and 29 seconds. Lindsey Pieper helped Virginia Tech out to the good start after she found the twine 94 seconds into the contest. Gray then scored her first goal of the afternoon at the 2:14 mark before Kady McBrearty recorded a marker 15 seconds later for a 3-0 advantage.

Duffy put the Mountaineers on the scoreboard off a Douglass assist at 7:10. After Terri Coover converted her free-position shot at 8:37, Douglass set up Casey Paris (Longwood, Fla./Lake Brantley) 12 seconds later to trim the margin to 4-2. The Hokies then rolled off its second string of three-straight markers to grab a 7-2 lead. Gray found the twine twice in the surge sandwiched in between a Rachel Culp goal in a span of one minute and 34 seconds.

Catanese answered for Mount St. Mary's with back-to-back scores with the first assisted by Duffy at 19:45 and her second coming unassisted 58 seconds later to cut the margin to 7-4. Virginia Tech again responded to the Mount's run with three unanswered goals to grab a 10-5 advantage with 4:08 left in the first half. Casey Warner started the spurt by converting an 8-meter shot at 24:07 before Reich and McBrearty each found the twine to end the run.

Paris posted her second goal of the afternoon at the 26:27 mark before Reich and Britt Faulkner capped the 12-goal first half with markers in the final three minutes.

Faith Richards started the scoring in the second half with a goal 57 seconds into the final stanza. Douglass answered for Mount St. Mary's at 33:30, but Reich and Culp each found the back of the net to hand the Hokies a 15-6 lead. Caitlin Preas (Rockville, Md./Our Lady of Good Counsel) notched her first goal of the season at 33:37 before Virginia Tech then rolled off three-straight scores for the fourth time on the day after Gray, Reich and Rose Patterson scored to increase the hosts advantage to 18-7 with 12:43 left in the match.

After Catanese recorded her hat trick after scoring unassisted at 49:40, Duffy set up Candice Welkie (Baltimore, Md./Mercy) at the 54:33 mark to make the score 18-9, but the McBrearty and Coover capped the win with markers in the final three minutes.

Kari Morrison posted five saves for Virginia Tech while Jane Karger (Pittsburgh, Pa./Hampton) turned away 11 shots for the Mountaineers. Jackie Kearney (Baltimore, Md./Seton Keough) tallied three draw controls and two ground balls in the loss.

Mount St. Mary's returns to action on Sunday at 13th-ranked Richmond. Game time is 1:00 p.m.

2007-03-09