NEWBERRY, S.C. — The Lincoln Memorial women's lacrosse team closed out its South Atlantic Conference schedule on Saturday with a 22-9 win at Newberry.
 
With the win, the Lady Railsplitters finish the SAC portion of their schedule with a 5-3 record, extending their new program record for conference wins. The victory also improved the team's overall record to 11-5 and set a program record for road wins with seven. Newberry dropped to 2-13 overall and 0-7 in the SAC with the loss.
 
Lincoln Memorial will now wait for SAC play to conclude to determine if it will host an opening round tournament game. LMU, Catawba and Wingate are in the mix for the two hosting slots.  
 
LMU jumped on the Wolves early with Jacquelin Turner opening the scoring at the 47-second mark of the game. Kennedy Buechner added the first of her three goals just over a minute later for a 2-0 lead.
 
The Lady Railsplitters had a 5-1 lead at the 14-minute mark, but Newberry came back with three straight goals to close the gap to 5-4. Head Coach Caitlyn Corace called a timeout to stop the streak and LMU responded with five straight goals over the next four minutes to extend the lead to 10-4.
 
"They came back and scored a few goals in the first half," said Corace. "I told the girls during the timeout we were still dominating time of possession but we weren't finishing on our shots."
 
Lincoln Memorial closed out the first half with an 11-5 lead when Kelly Csenar scored on a free position shot with one second on the clock. At that point, LMU was leading in shots 25-9 and shots on goal 19-7.
 
"They had an advantage in ground balls the first half so we had to make an adjustment," Corace pointed out. "We responded well."
 
In the second half, the LMU offense outscored Newberry 11-4. Csenar and Jasmin Click led the offensive charge with four goals each. Buechner and Amara Moss had three each, Casey Kelly and Turner had two goals apiece and Erin DePaul, Sydnee Saksa, Rachel Gardner and Rachel Bernhardt closed out the scoring for LMU.
 
"The offense did a good job of moving the ball up the field and capitalizing on the fast break opportunities that presented themselves," Corace added.
 
Lincoln Memorial will have to await results from Wingate and Catawba to find out if it will host an opening round tournament game.
 
LMU will close out its regular season next Friday with a non-conference Senior Day game against North Greenville University at the LMU Lacrosse Complex.