EDWARDSVILLE – Wilkes University's Domenica Lerch (Northampton, PA/Northampton) led four players with four or more points as the rookie scored a career-best six goals in the Colonels 19-9 victory over Purchase College Tuesday afternoon at Schmidt Stadium.
 
With the second straight home victory Wilkes improved to 2-1 on the young season. Purchase dropped to 0-1 overall after its season opener.
 
Camryn Devitt (Northampton, PA/Northampton) opened the scoring for Wilkes off an assist from Lerch four minutes into the game. Lerch then called her own number unassisted just :11 later grabbing a draw control and scoring. Laura Bayzick (Hazleton, PA/Hazleton Area) made it 3-0 when she notched her first strike of the game at the 24:25 mark after Purchase was whistled for a yellow card.  Lerch then added a second goal off a helper from Kyra Boccio (Dingmans Ferry, Pa./Delaware Valley) and Sierra Duman (Smyrna, DE/Smyrna) ended the scoring rally as the Colonels led 5-0 with 20:43 on the first half clock.
 
Purchase kept things close scoring the game's next three goals cutting the deficit to 5-3 with 15:30 left in the opening half.
 
From there Wilkes responded with four unanswered goals and five of the next seven to take a 10-5 advantage into the break. Boccio and Bayzick scored twice each during the stretch of four unanswered and Ashley Burkhardt (Havre de Grace, MD/Havre de Grace) rounded out the scoring in the ten goal half.
 
Lerch continued her scoring tear into the second half adding three more goals to push the Wilkes lead to 16-6, its largest of the game, with 14:05 remaining.  Purchase got no closer than seven goals the rest of the way as Lerch, Duman and Bayzick notched insurance tallies in the final eight minutes of the non-conference win.
 
Lerch finished with a career-best six goals and two assists for eight points. Boccio followed with six points on three goals and three helpers while Duman added five points on four goals and one assist. Bayzick enjoyed a fine all-around game scoring four goals and collecting a game-high 10 ground balls with six draw controls.
 
Sarah Carlini (Collegeville, PA/Pope John Paul II) finished with 14 saves playing all but ten minutes in net in the game on way to the victory.
 
Wilkes returns to action Saturday, March 16 with a road contest at The College of Old Westbury starting at 1:00 p.m.