MOON TOWNSHIP– With a much-needed win at Detroit Mercy Saturday, the Robert Morris women’s lacrosse team looked to begin stringing a couple wins together in their matchup against Youngstown State for a Wednesday afternoon tilt.

The Colonials doubled the Penguins score 12-6 to improve to 3-1 in conference play.

“We know last week on Wednesday we didn’t play so well, so I think today we really needed to make sure to come out and put our Saturday efforts forward and we did that.” head coach Katrina Silva said.

The first quarter was a dogfight with a defensive showdown early. Lilli Hadden finally got on the board first for the Colonials with 1:21 left in the first quarter. Colleen Tifft also scored a goal for the Colonials with ten seconds remaining in the opening quarter.

“Colleen’s work ethic is second to none,” Silva said. “She does this every day, whether it’s practice, or whether it’s game day. She works so hard every day. So, it’s not surprising when she is prepared for games.”

The goals couldn’t stop coming for RMU, with four more unanswered goals to begin the second quarter.

Jordan Anderson, Jenna Irwin, Chelsea Coleman and Colleen Tifft, again, strung together goals before the Penguins could answer.

Jamie Keller had 11 saves on 17 shots in the afternoon. Coach Silva spoke on her presence between the pipes.

“Holding any team down to six [goals] is where we’d like to be,” Silva said. “She did an awesome job doing the things she needed to do for us to get the win today.”

Kelsey Nelson continued the dominant half with a goal fourteen seconds remaining in the half to put the Colonials up big into the break.

Two quick Colonial goals extended the lead but it was answered with three Penguin goals to answer. Lilli Hadden scored another late goal for the Colonials before the end of the quarter, doubling the scoreline over the Penguins.

Much like the first quarter, the final quarter was also low-scoring, with three goals total.

Colleen Tifft had four goals on the afternoon, matching a season-high also against Youngstown State.

“I kept really calm today, which was cool.” Tifft said. “I always play well against Youngstown, really. I like them. They’re a really good team and good competitor and we always like to bring our best against them.”

Coach Silva and company face Kent State on Saturday, a rematch from last week’s loss at home.

“We have to play like this [on Saturday]. This was inspiring.” Silva said. “This was a team that in all four quarters was very motivated to win a MAC Championship. This team showed up. We may have made mistakes, but we’ll get better. Last Wednesday, we coasted and we were on our heels and ‘oh I’ll take a break.’ There is no break. There are no breaks in this conference. So, we’ll be ready for Saturday.”

“We saw a lot of different people do many different things,” Tifft said. “So we have the numbers and we’re ready to go after Kent State really hard. We all know we didn’t play our best [last Wednesday].”

The rematch takes play this Saturday at 1 p.m.