CHARLESTON, West Virginia.- Dominican women's lacrosse are headed to the MEC championship in their first full season of being an NCAA DII program after defeating the Golden Eagles from University of Charleston 12-8 in the MEC semifinals Thursday afternoon. Brooke Vafi, Olivia Johnson, Elke Moerkeseth, and Natalie Oyler were honored before the game with their First-Team All-MEC awards.

After being off a full month, the Pengs wasted no time getting things started as they jumped out to a quick 5-0 lead in the first quarter. Kyra Evans, who was selected to the All-MEC Freshman Team, called her own number two minutes into the game and sent one past the goalie for the early lead. On the next offensive possession, Vafi the senior leader, took a nice dish from Newkirk and sent one to the back of the net to give the Pengs the 2-0 lead.

Speaking of Newkirk, the junior out of San Diego ended the first quarter with a missile past the Golden Eagles defense off a nice pass from Vafi. She would then open the scoring in the second quarter by juking out multiple defenders giving Dominican a 6-0 lead.

"It was great to see how we came out to begin the game, my teammates and I did a great job of communicating early and it was good to jump on them first," Newkirk said. "Our defense did an amazing job today which really allowed our offense to open up."

That defense came up clutch today to secure the victory for the Penguins. Midway through the second quarter the Golden Eagles would go on a 3-0 run to bite into the Dominican lead. The Pengs would regroup and get situated on the back end with Olivia Johnson leading the charge forcing four caused turnovers to go along with a couple ground balls. Freshman Sienna Prak-Perry lead the team with four ground balls.

Oyler, the junior out of Idaho, was a menace in the cage for the Pengs as she made life tough all day for the Golden Eagles. She came down with eight saves on the day and was the anchor on the back line down the stretch.

"Our training the last couple of weeks made us prepared for this game, we really emphasized pressure on the ball and we executed that," Oyler said. "It was awesome to see that spark we started the game with and then our defense picked up as the game went along to close it out."

Halfway through the fourth quarter is where things got a little close for the Penguins. After a Golden Eagles goal in the five-minute mark trimmed the lead down to two, Dominican called a timeout to collect themselves. The Pengs came out of that timeout calm and collected, and each one of them had the look of confidence.

The possession after that timeout it all started with a crucial draw control win by junior Macie Wood who had a great first step which led to her initiating the offense. As Dominican brought the ball down the field it ended up with Newkirk who knew all too well what to do with it. She got to her spot, and it was over after that as she fired one past the goalie for the 11-8 lead with four minutes left. Vafi would put the game one ice as she called her own number and found the back of the net with a minute left.

"It feels so surreal playing for the championship on Sunday, I came into this game just thinking this could be my last game, so I wanted to give it my all today," Wood said. "I'm really proud of this program and how much we've developed since my freshman year, I can't wait for Sunday."

The Penguins await the winner of Frostburg vs Wheeling State and will play for the championship Sunday, May 4^th at 1 pm EST.