VILLANOVA, Pa. – On Friday, Apr. 26, the Villanova women's lacrosse team was defeated 14-8 by No. 14 Denver. The Wildcats fall to 10-7, 3-2 and the Pioneers improve to 13-2, 5-0 on the season.

The competition started out evenly between the two BIG EAST opponents in their third all-time matchup. Early on, the play fluctuated back and forth on the field and the game remained scoreless for over a 10-minute period.

Eventually, Denver found its rhythm and scored four goals over a five-minute span. Quintin Hoch-Bullen scored three of the four goals during that time for the Pioneers.
For Villanova, Nicole Concannon was first to get her team a tally on the board. Maggie Jennings set Concannon up with a perfect pass on the cut allowing her to net her 11^th goal of the season.

Kendra Lanuza, of the visiting Pioneers followed up three minutes later with two back-to-back goals giving her team a 6-1 lead.

Junior attack Liz Trojan then cut the lead to four with a free-position goal, but it was shortly negated on a free-position goal on Denver's side making the score 7-2.

The two went on to exchange possession for the remaining five and a half minutes of the first half until senior Carlye Maita cut her way through defenders and found her way past Carson Gregg in the net.

Denver went into halftime with a 7-3 lead over Villanova while also holding a 20-10 shot advantage as well as a 7-4 draw control lead.

In the second half of the competition the Pioneers came out with momentum from their first half lead and scored two goals. Their first goal came 30 seconds into the frame and their second came only a minute later to extend the lead to 9-3.

Liz Trojan scored her second goal of the game to break up what would have been a 4-0 run by Denver, otherwise. Trojan's goal came on a free-position, also while the Wildcats were in a man-down possession. Two more goals were netted in by the visitors, one on a man-up possession for them.

The pair went on to exchange goals two times. Villanova's goals began with Trojan's third and final goal of the game and Brittany Bruno would go on to score her first of the competition before Denver could net in their second goal during the four-minute span.

With the score stuck at 13-6 for seven minutes, in Denver's favor, Villanova was first to break the silence. Grainger Rosati would make some noise first and record her 17^th goal of the season and then Katie Comerford would catch a pass from Ashley Lynch to bring the score to 13-8 with one-minute remaining.

Denver closed out the scoring for the competition with 25 seconds left on the clock and blasted in a goal to cap off their perfect BIG EAST record with a 14-8 win.

The Wildcats will return to action on Thursday, May 2 in Milwaukee, W.I. during the semifinals round of the 2019 BIG EAST Championships Presented by Jeep. Seeding is yet to be determine and will be decided after the conclusion of Saturday's BIG EAST games.