It was a wild and woolly afternoon in Richmond, but in the end the William & Mary field hockey team came away with a 5-4 comeback win over host VCU on Sunday.  The Tribe improved to 8-8 on the season with the win, while the Rams fell to 5-11 overall.

While the Tribe's hallmark has been fast starts over the last few weeks, Sunday it was VCU who jumped in front early and efficiently, scoring on each of their first four shots.  The Rams went ahead 1-0 early in the third minute, a lead that was quickly erased by junior Cammie Lloyd (Midlothian, Va.) in the 11th minute with a high-arcing chip shot over the keeper.  That was her team-leading 13th goal of the year, and she now has 32 points overall, the most since Lauren Giles '06 scored 34 in her CAA Player of the Year campaign in 2004.

The host team retook the lead with two more goals in the first half, scoring in the 21st and 29th minutes to go up 3-1, before freshman Cassidy Goodwin (Gloucester, Va.) began bringing her team back.  In the 32nd minute, the Tribe earned a penalty corner, and Annie Snead (Midlothian, Va.) and Erin Menges (Richmond, Va.) combined to get the ball to MacLeod who scored to cut the deficit in half.  Then, in the final minute, another penalty corner led to Goodwin taking a shot that was saved.  The carrom fell to the stick of senior Mary Flick (Moorestown, N.J.) in close, and she slotted the ball home to re-knot the match.  It was Flick's second career goal, and first of the season.

The second half saw much of the same, with VCU taking its final lead of the game in the 42nd minute.  Five minutes later, Menges found Goodwin on the attack, and the freshmen finished to the far upper 90 to bring the score all-square at 4-4.  It came back to junior Emma MacLeod (Richmond, Va.) to complete the comeback, which she did in the 62nd minute, taking the ball and out-working the defense and the goalkeeper herself before taking a diving shot that found the back of the boards to give W&M its first lead of the match, 5-4.  That would hold up over the final 8:29, and the Tribe reached .500 this late in the season for the first time since 2012.  For the game, W&M out-shot VCU 18-8, and held an 11-5 advantage in penalty corners.  Freshman goalkeeper Morgan Connor (Bedford, N.Y.) made two saves in goal to pick up the win.

William & Mary is back on the road next week, for the final two matches of the regular season.  The Tribe plays a matinee next Friday, Oct. 28, at 3 p.m. against Fairfield, before finishing the regular season against CAA-rival Hofstra on Sunday at noon.  W&M has already clinched a spot in the tournament and can be seeded no worse than third, and still has a significant chance to claim at least a share of the regular-season title for the first time since 2004.