COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – The No. 16 Ithaca College women's lacrosse team made it five wins in five outings on Wednesday evening when the Bombers faced 15^th-ranked Colorado College during its Spring Break trip to the Rockies. Behind a relentless attack, the Bombers blitzed the Tigers in a 21-9 runaway, putting yet-another quality victory on the resume as the squad is set to enter Liberty League action this upcoming weekend.
 
Entering the season, Ithaca knew that it was going to find out a lot about its status as a national contender during the early portion of the season. Following Wednesday's result, the nation is surely on notice that the Bombers are for real. The 21-9 rout of the Tigers marked Ithaca's fourth straight win over an opponent ranked within the IWLCA's Top-25 Coaches Poll, certainly establishing Ithaca's resume as one of the most impressive nationally through the first month of the year.
 
It was a dominating performance in all aspects for Ithaca. The Bombers outshot Colorado College 34-to-25 on the day, which included a stark advantage of 28-to-17 in shots on goal. IC was equally impressive defensively, using an aggressive ride to limit the Tigers to just an 11-for-19 conversion rate on successful clears. Perhaps most encouraging was Ithaca's performance on the draw, which had been the one area of relative weakness during this hellacious stretch of the non-league schedule. The Bombers posted a 19-to-13 edge in draw controls on the day, marking the first time this season that IC held an advantage over its opponent in this key statistic. Ithaca was also clinical in its finishing in the contest, earning 11 free-position shot attempts and converting on seven of those during the course of play.
 
Eight Bombers got on the score sheet in the high-scoring tilt, which was the second time Ithaca cracked the 20-goal mark this season. Headlining the day was a career performance from senior midfielder Katie Welch who continued to emerge as a key offensive piece for the Bombers. She paced Ithaca with a career-high six points on the day, registering her third hat-trick effort with four goals, as well as adding two assists. The senior also registered one of Ithaca's six caused turnovers on the afternoon, while also corralling one ground-ball.
 
Three other IC players recorded four-goal efforts in the balanced offensive onslaught. Senior attacker Bailey Herr shook out of her scoring slump with a five-point outing, scoring four tallies and dishing out one assist. Junior midfielder Jacqui Hallack also continued to wield a lethal scoring touch for the Bombers with four goals, while she also corralled a monster nine draw controls on the day. Junior attacker Indira Varma also continued her breakout season with her third four-goal outing in five appearances this season.
 
Junior attacker Madison Boutureira contributed a strong effort with her season-best game to-date. She registered four points, netting two goals and dishing out two helpers. Fellow third-year attacker Alexa Ritchie also amassed a multi-goal game with two scoring strikes, while junior midfielder Megan Motkowski chipped in one goal and one assist, as well as four draw controls and a team-best four ground-balls. Junior defensive midfielder Rachel Rosenberg registered one point on the day with an assist, while she also gobbled up three ground-balls, two draw controls and forced on caused turnover.
 
It was an impressive defensive effort against one of the nation's more prolific scoring offenses in recent seasons. Juniors Molly Nodiff and Samantha Marsh, as well as sophomore Kelly Mehorter played big roles in stymieing the Tigers in the attacking end. Each IC player registered one caused turnover on the day, the younger Mehorter also corralling three ground-balls. Their efforts alongside senior Becky Mehorter, as well as juniors Caroline Paquin and Caroline Grant kept Colorado College out of sync for much of the day.
 
In goal, junior Mackenzie Schade continued her strong run of form this season. She stopped eight shots and again held a ranked team to single-digit goals, continuing to lower her season goals-against average around the 9.00-mark.
 
The tone was set right from the opening possession of the day. Colorado College won the opening draw, but expert and tenacious defending forced a shot-clock violation on the hosts opening possession. The Bombers wasted little time with their first taste of the ball, as Herr wrapped from right-to-left behind the cage and used her go-to power move to flash across the face of goal and deposit a shot into the lower left corner. The scoring strike sparked a 6-0 run for IC to begin the contest. Hallack and Motkowski both notched free-position goals during the sequence, while Boutureira added an unassisted tally and the combo of Welch and Varma synced up on a nice passing play as well. Herr put the bookend on the run with her ninth of the season slightly over midway through the opening half.
 
The hosts responded with the lion's share of possession over the next four-minute sequence. The Tigers finally found a couple cracks in the stalwart IC defense and capitalized for three goals to halve the IC lead. Bella Beattie scored the opener for the Tigers on the ensuing possession after Herr's second goal of the day. Allie Thuet then struck for back-to-back scoring strikes to make the score 6-3 with 10:39 left in the half.
 
The momentum swung back in Ithaca's favor over a short 3:42 stretch in which the Bombers let the net on fire for six more goals to blow matters open. Herr and Hallack both notched hat-tricks during the sequence, which was powered by four successive draw control wins for IC. Welch added her first of the day during the stretch, while Ritchie scored on a free-position snipe. Varma added her second of the half to cap the run and increase the lead margin to 12-3 with 5:14 left in the half.
 
Colorado College responded with another three-goal run to briefly staunch the IC momentum. Eva King stopped the scoring run with 4:55 to play, while Beattie and Thuet continued to make their impact in the offensive end with scores. However, Ithaca had the last laugh in the half Hallack scored on a free-position with Ithaca working with a player advantage in the final minute after Cassis Schafer was sent off for a yellow card infraction.
 
Any hope of a Colorado comeback was eliminated during the opening 10-minutes of the second half, as IC stretched the advantage to a game-high 13 goals to lock in a running clock that would continue through the duration of the contest. Varma and Welch each scored twice during the six-goal barrage over the first 12:26 of game play following halftime. Although Colorado strung together their third three-goal run of the day to close the margin to 10 goals at 19-9 with 12:08 to play, IC capped the dominant day with goals from Ritchie and Welch in the final five minutes of action.
 
Ithaca is scheduled to return to action on Sunday, March 15, when the team returns to New York to open up Liberty League play at RIT. The contest is currently scheduled to begin at noon.