Two games into the 2014 season, the Genesee Community College women's lacrosse team has already assured itself its most successful season in school history. In its fourth season as a program, the Cougars had tallied two total wins entering Saturday's game against Erie Community College. Riding a season-opening win against Niagara County Community College on Wednesday, GCC remained perfect on the season with a 9-7 win over ECC to improve to 2-0 overall and in Western New York Athletic Conference (WNYAC) play.
Genesee faced an early deficit after the Kats scored back-to-back goals early in the first half to grab a 2-0 lead.
Coming off of an eight-goal performance to open the season on Wednesday, Kaleigh Murray continued her torrid start to the year with a goal at the 19:48 mark of the first to get GCC to within 2-1.
Erie extended its lead back to two just a minute later and after nearly 10-minutes of scoreless play, Murray cashed in her second goal of the game with 9:12 to go in the opening period to make it 3-2.
Less than a minute later, Ashley Makowski set up Murray for her third goal of the game and GCC tied the score at three with 8:27 to play.
Erie responded and tallied back-to-back goals to end the half and led 5-3 at the break.
Makowski led Genesee out of halftime by scoring three straight goals and gave the Cougars their first lead of the game with just over 20-minutes to play at 6-5.
After the Kats tied the game at six, Murray scored off of a pass from Rachel Ball and GCC took the lead for good.
Mariah Niemiec scored her first goal of the season to give Genesee an 8-6 lead with under five-minutes to play and after the Kats drew to within one with 1:30 remaining, Makowski iced the game with her fourth goal of the afternoon with 30-seconds left.
Katya Oakes made 17 saves in the game including a number of big saves in the second half.
Yuki Sasao collected six ground balls, Hannah Dominesey forced four ECC turnovers and Niemiec tallied eight face-off wins.
Genesee will return to action on Sunday at noon when it hosts the Community College of Baltimore County-Catonsville.