By Dalton Ray–

In the second night game in program history, No. 20 women’s lacrosse (6-1) defeated Cincinnati (1-3) 14-8. U of L held off the second half surge from the Bearcats by scoring 12 goals in the first half.

The two-goal second half was the lowest the Cardinals had since last season in a loss to Duke. Associate head coach Victoria Latino said U of L lost control of the game in the second half.

“We got a little bit greedy. We scored 12 really nice goals in the first half but came out and tried to do too much too fast,” Latino said. “In terms of the first half, that’s the team we know we are. We just told the team to take it easy and slow down.”

Three players had hat tricks for U of L in senior Hannah Koloski and sophomores Meghan Siverson and McKayla Conti. Louisville’s three leading goal scorers combined for 11 goals against the Bearcats.

Scoring started early for U of L as Koloski and Siverson scored two goals 13 seconds apart two minutes into the game.

Cincy’s Sam Mlkvy recorded the Bearcats’ first goal in one of the few UC highlights of the half.

Senior Heidi Smith scored a goal 30 seconds after Mlkvy, sparking a 6-0 scoring run for U of L.

Trading blows after the big run by U of L, Cincy’s Amanda Donovan netted a back-handed goal seconds before the halftime horn, making the score 12-4.

Cincy started the half with a 3-0 scoring run, cutting the Louisville lead to five. Siverson stopped the bleeding for U of L, but a 13-minute scoring drought followed.

Donovan scored her second goal of the match for UC, making the score 13-8.

A goal from Koloski with six minutes to play was the match’s final point.

Koloski has 27 goals through the first seven games and Siverson has 26. Junior Brittany Read recorded 13 saves in the game, bringing her yearly total to 73.

Louisville travels to Notre Dame (6-1) for their first ACC game on March 4.

Photos by Dalton Ray / The Louisville Cardinal