ST. JOSEPH, Mo. - The Concordia-St. Paul women's lacrosse team (5-7) dropped its final non-conference game of the 2023 season, falling 13-9 at Missouri Western State (6-4) on Friday afternoon at Spratt Memorial Stadium.

The game, originally scheduled for February 19, was already rescheduled once and encountered further issues impacting the ability for the teams to complete the contest. Following CSP's 2-1 first quarter lead, several recurring lightning delays prompted a stopped of nearly three hours.

When play resumed following a brief warmup period, the Golden Bears were able to extend their lead to 4-2 when Sara Kaiser scored her third goal of the game midway through the second quarter. Kaiser finished with three goals, netting her third hat trick of the season and extending her streak of multiple points in a game to seven.

From there, the Griffons went on a 7-0 run covering the rest of the second quarter for a 7-4 halftime lead and scoring the first two goals of the second half in the first two and a half minutes of the third quarter for a 9-4 advantage.

Although CSP carved back into the lead with back-to-back goals by freshmen Claire Flahaven and Lauren Sheets for a 9-6 MWSU lead with 6:32 to play in the third quarter, the Griffons responded with their second big run of the game, a 4-0 spurt with the final two goals of the third quarter for an 11-6 lead and the first two goals of the fourth to push the margin to the largest of the day, 13-6 with 12:15 to play.

Concordia continued to claw back, though, with Sheets adding two more goals with freshman Kayleigh Nelson scoring one between for a 3-0 run to make it a 4-goal margin (13-9) with 3:26 remaining.

But the Griffons won the ensuing draw control and CSP was only able to get one more shot off with Nelson's shot on goal saved with 10 seconds to play.

Sheets joined Kaiser with a hat trick, her eighth of the season as she's scored multiple points in 11 straight contests and has 37 goals on the season.

Freshman Susie Monson also had a pair of points, scoring and assisting once each to give her 20 points on the season, while Flahaven's goal was setup when she snared a pass from the MWSU goalie at the 30 yard line and charged at the cage for the breakaway goal, her second of the year.

Senior goalie Candace McDole was stellar early on, saving four of the first five shots on goal and six of the first eight. She finished the day with another double-digit save performance with 11, reaching 11 saves for the seventh time this season.

Defensively, Natalie Brownfield led the team with three caused turnovers while Flahaven and Nelson each had three ground balls. Anna Fisher topped the team in the midfield with three draw controls.

The Griffons were led by Mikaela Ness with three goals while four others had two each. Ness also had five draw controls while Jordan Coulon had six.

The Golden Bears return to GLIAC play with three more league games in the regular season, starting with a pair on the road on Wednesday at Davenport and on Friday at #17 Grand Valley State.