ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y. – The 19^th-ranked Ithaca College women's lacrosse team kicked off its final road trip of the regular-season on Friday afternoon when it faced Bard in the first leg of a weekend back-to-back in Liberty League play. The Bombers kept the offense rolling against the Raptors, racing out to a big first-half lead en route to a 23-4 victory. The win improves Ithaca's record to 10-4 on the year and 7-1 in Liberty League play.
 
Huge offense performances have been the norm for IC during the 2019 campaign. For the fourth time this season Ithaca topped the 20-goal mark, its highest number of 20-goal games since registering five such performances during head coach Karrie Moore's debut season in 2016. The Bombers attack proved too much for Bard's weary defensive corps over the course of the day. Although the hosts kept within striking distance over the first 10-minutes, IC's wave-after-wave of attacking pressure wore down the Raptors' resistance as the first-half continued. Ithaca locked-in a double-digit lead with 12-minutes remaining in the opening half and never allowed the margin to close within that 10-goal margin for the duration.
 
The Bombers held hefty advantages in almost all the counting stats on the day. IC outshot Bard 34-to-14, which included a 30-to-11 edge in shots on goal. The Bombers also outpaced the Raptors 18-to-11 in ground-balls, 17-to-10 in draw controls, and 9-to-3 in free-position shots.
 
Ithaca had eight players amass multi-point games on the day. Headlining the group was the senior attacking duo of Elizabeth Rice and Allie Panara who each tallied six points on the day. Rice totaled all of her points on goals, bringing her season total to 39 on the year. Panara scored twice, while also dishing out four assists to hit the 30-assist milestone for a third consecutive season.
 
Junior attacker Bailey Herr finished with five points on the afternoon, scoring three goals and adding two helpers to improve her team-leading point total to 64 on the year. It was her ninth game of five-plus points this season, while she extended her point-streak to all 14 games this season and 34 straight games dating back to her freshman season. She is now just eight points shy of tying her single-season career high of 72 that she registered a season ago.
 
A trio of Ithaca players finished with three points on the day. Sophomore midfielder Jacqui Hallack posted a hat trick on the afternoon, extending her current streak to seven straight games with three-points or more. The other two three-point achievers were newcomers to the score sheet, as sophomore midfielder Hannah Welshoff and first-year Peyton Fleming both registered their first collegiate points in the win. Welshoff posted two goals and one assist, while Fleming had the reverse score line with one goal and two helpers.
 
Sophomores Megan Motkowski and Gianna Dilaura both posted two-point outings to round out IC's multi-point scorers. Both players registered one goal and one assist on the day, Dilaura's representing her first two points of the 2019 campaign. Junior midfielder Katie Welch, as well as sophomore mids Alexa Ritchie, Alex Rabb and Indira Varma each tallied one goal to conclude IC's scoring on the day.
 
Defensively, Ithaca totaled only three caused turnovers; however, that was mostly due to Ithaca's stark advantage in possession time. Sophomore midfielder Rachel Rosenberg, sophomore defender Molly Nodiff and Rice each marked one caused turnover in the win. Nodiff and Rosenberg each finished with two ground-balls, while Rice finished with a game-high four.
 
The draw control was evenly distributed for the Bombers with seven players recording at least one and four players registering three-or-more. Panara led IC with four controls, while Herr, Hallack and senior defender Reid Simoncini each finished with three. Rice finished with two, while Rabb and sophomore Caroline Grant each posted one.
 
In goal, sophomore keeper Mackenzie Schade got the win after playing the opening half. She recorded two saves and conceded three times in improving her record to 10-4 on the year. First-year Lillian Matz saw her first action of 2019 during the second half and was impressive in her collegiate debut. She conceded just one goal and made five saves over the final 30-minutes.
 
The Bombers controlled matters from the outset on Friday. Although IC and Bard traded goals in the opening three minutes of play, Ithaca took control with a seven-goal run that put Ithaca comfortably ahead at 8-1 with 17:42 remaining in the half. Rice scored three times during the early stretch, while Hallack and Herr added two goals apiece.
 
Ithaca extended the margin to double-digits at the 12-minute mark when Panara scored her 14^th of the season. The goal came as part of a subsequent 5-0 IC scoring run after Bard's Casey Witte snapped the aforementioned seven-goal run earlier in the half. While Bard's Melissa Rosenthal netted a goal to make the score 13-3 with 4:58 to play in the half, IC kept the momentum through halftime with a 4-0 scoring run to close the first 30-minutes. Hallack, Rice, Varma and Motkowski all scored in the final 3:40 of the half with Motkowski's goal coming 10-seconds before the halftime horn.
 
With matters well in-hand, Ithaca slowed the pace down a little bit in the second half, while the team also had a chance to feature some of its talented up-and-coming players. IC's youngsters performed quite well in all aspects, outscoring the Raptors 6-to-1 over the final 30-minutes. Rabb, Welshoff and Ritchie each scored as part of a 3-0 run to begin the frame over the first 10-minutes of the second half. Fleming, Dilaura and Welshoff added goals over the final 10-minutes of play.
 
Ithaca will be back in action tomorrow afternoon when the team continues the road trip at Vassar. Start time has been updated to 3:00 p.m. to accommodate some scheduling changes due to the rain forecast over the next 24-hours.