PURCHASE, N.Y. – The Wilkes women's lacrosse team were defeated on the road Saturday afternoon, bested by Manhattanville College 15-5 at GoValiants.com Field.

The Colonels fall to 1-3 on the year, while the Valiants improve to 1-0 with the victory.

Ava Ward (Mount Pleasant, SC/Bishop England) opened the scoring with 14:28 to play in the first quarter, assisted by Brooklyn Pedana (Pittston, PA/Pittston Area) to give the Colonels a 1-0 lead. Manhattanville responded with three goals of their own to blank the Colonels for the remainder of the first quarter and take a 3-1 lead.

The Valiants offense continued with four unanswered goals to start the second quarter, before Pedana added another goal for the Colonels with 7:28 remaining in the half to make it a 7-2 game. Mara Adams (Mehoopany, PA/Tunkhannock Area) assisted on the goal. Following a Manhattanville player-up goal, Anmarie Lebron (Pennsauken, NJ/Pennsauken) responded with one of her own to make it an 8-3 game with 3:08 remaining in the half, assisted by Breanne Fulling (Hyde Park, NY/Franklin D. Roosevelt).

Manhattanville scored one more goal with 19 seconds remaining to take a 9-3 lead into halftime.

The second half started with two more Valiant goals, but the Colonels responded again with two back-to-back goals from Morgan Hettesheimer (Monroe Twp., PA/Tunkhannock Area) and Pedana to make the score 11-5. Hettesheimer scored on a free position goal, while Maleah Cobham (Westbury, NY/W.T. Clarke) assisted on Pedana's second of the day.

The Colonels were unable to find the net for the rest of the day and were defeated by the Valiants 15-5.

Pedana led the Colonels with three points on a team-high two goals and one assist. Ava Ward (Mount Pleasant, SC/Bishop England) led the Colonels with five shots on goal, five draw controls, four ground balls, and shared the team-lead in caused turnovers with two. Fulling and Carly Yuhas also registered two caused turnovers along with Ward. In net, Samantha Scott (Binghamton, NY/Chenango Valley) made 13 saves.

Kaci Pierce led the Valiants with five goals and 10 shots on goal, and tied Colleen MacNeil and Pietra Cabral for the top points total with five. MacNeil shared the team lead in caused turnovers with Sydney Natale at four each, while Jacee Russello made 12 saves in net.

The Colonels return home for their next contest as they welcome Marywood University to Schmidt Stadium on Tuesday, March 5^th at 4:00 p.m.