EDWARDSVILLE – Visiting Immaculata University raced out to a 10-5 lead at the half and never looked back on way to a 21-9 victory over host Wilkes University Thursday afternoon at Schmidt Stadium.
 
Wilkes dropped its season opener and fell to 0-1 on the young season while Immaculata earned its first victory of the year moving to 1-1 overall.
 
Ashley Burkhardt (Havre de Grace, MD/Havre de Grace) put Wilkes on the board first with a goal off an assist from Kyra Boccio (Dingmans Ferry, Pa./Delaware Valley) just two minutes into the first half. After back-to-back goals from Immaculata, Sierra Duman (Smyrna, DE/Smyrna) notched her first collegiate goal off another helper from Boccio at the 21:12 mark.
 
Three minutes later Jessyca Held (West Babylon, NY/West Babylon) darted through the Might Mac defense scoring her first of the season to give the Lady Colonels a 3-2 advantage with 19:26 left. Seventeen seconds later Boccio found the back of the net to push the lead to 4-2. Immaculata used three straight goals over the next seven minutes to take back the advantage leading 5-4. Held scored again to tie the game for the third time before five unanswered Immaculata goals to end the half put the visitors up 10-5 at the break.
 
Trailing 11-5 early in the second half, goals from Boccio and Burkhardt brought Wilkes to within four with 22:24 remaining in the game. Immaculata's Layne Kennedy answered back with two straight goals  followed by two more strikes over the next six minutes pushing the Might Mac lead back to 15-7 with 19:35 on the clock.
 
Boccio scored her third of the game followed by Duman's second to keep Wilkes within striking distance trailing 16-9 with just over 14 minutes remaining. From there Immaculata scored three more goals to push the advantage to double digits up 19-9 with eight minutes left in the game. Immaculata added two more tallies in the final eight minutes to seal the road non-league victory.
 
Boccio led Wilkes with six points on three goals and three assists. Three different Lady Colonels scored two goals each including Burkhardt, Held and Duman.
 
Kennedy topped eight different players who scored for Immaculata with seven goals and one assist.
 
Sarah Carlini (Collegeville, PA/Pope John Paul II) finished with 15 saves for Wilkes in net.
 
Wilkes returns home Saturday hosting SUNY Maritime in non-conference action at 1:00 p.m. at Schmidt Stadium.