QUINCY, Illinois- Dominican women's lacrosse (8-2, 1-0) kicked off their Midwest road trip with a nail-biting thriller Friday afternoon as they squared off against the Hawks of Quincy University. With the game tied at 10 and 19 seconds left on the clock, the Pengs put the ball in the hands of graduate student Ryan Bionda. Bionda, the Canada native, proved she had ice in her veins as she rocketed one past the Hawks goalie for the game-winning goal and her team leading 28^th goal of the season.

Chelsea Johnson, the fellow Canada native, got the scoring started for the Pengs in this one when she called her own number juking out defenders and putting one in the back of the net one minute into the game. The black and gold were spreading the wealth all day as they finished with more assists than the Hawks. The first one came courtesy of Bionda when she found a cutting Stella Artukovich who quickly put it past the Hawks goalie for the 2-1 lead.

Quincy would answer back in the second quarter led by Alaina Wilkinson collecting a couple of goals and taking a 7-2 lead late in the second. Seconds before the whistle blew for halftime, Bionda found some open space and whistled one to the back of the net assisted by Taylor Pieri.

In the second half Morgan Newkirk and the Penguin offense came out firing. Newkirk, the San Diego native would finish with a game high four goals and all of them coming in the second half. The third quarter would be all black and gold as Pieri and Piper Mott joined Newkirk in the scoring department cutting the Hawks lead down to two heading into fourth.

Not only did the Pengs offense catch fire in the second, but their defense clamped up during crunch time. Junior Elke Moerkeseth led the team with three caused turnovers while sophomore Sienna Prak-Perry was everywhere on the backend scooping up a game high five ground balls.

The San Diego duo of Newkirk and Artukovich would get the last quarter started for the black and gold. Newkirk scored the first points of the quarter when she received a nice dish from Pieri and finished it off for the Pengs seventh point of the game. Then, three minutes later, Artukovich would take advantage of a man-up opportunity scoring her 10^th of the season tying the game back up.

Dominican will be back in action March. 29^th when they travel to Maryville at 12 p.m. CST.