The No. 18-ranked William & Mary field hockey team exploded in record-setting fashion Sunday against La Salle, cruising to an 8-0 victory.  The Tribe snapped a three-game skid and improved to 6-4 with the win, while the Explorers fell to 5-3 overall.

With eight goals and eight assists to go along with them, W&M broke the school record for points in a game Sunday with 24 total.  That broke the long-standing mark of 23 points, set in a 9-1 win over Lehigh during the 1990 season.  The Tribe's eight assists were also the second-most all-time, while the eight goals is tied for third in school history and the Green and Gold's 40 shots are tied for eighth-most all-time.



The Tribe got started in the scoring column early and often, starting late in the sixth minute.  Senior Estelle Hughes (Newcastle, NSW) tooled through the defense and found sophomore Cata Days (Buenos Aires, Argentina) near the post.  Days received the pass with La Salle's goalkeeper, Emma Provost, on her hip, spun back and hit a reverse shot across to bang in off the far post.  Less than 40 seconds later, Hughes struck again, this time taking the ball herself and driving across the front of the goal to shoot a hard shot under the keeper and put W&M ahead 2-0.

The scoring continued in the 11th minute, out of one of the Tribe's 12 penalty corners.  Freshman Melanie Strik (Den Haag, The Netherlands) was elected to take the shot up top off the insertion from Annie Snead (Midlothian, Va.) and stop from senior captain Erin Menges (Richmond, Va.), and her strike was hard and true for her first career goal.  Less than a minute later, Snead was again the catalyst for a goal, slapping a shot from the high elbow across to the far post where junior Jenny McCann (Annandale, Va.) was waiting for the redirect to insure it found the goal.

Senior Emma MacLeod (Richmond, Va.) was knocking on the door pretty much all game long, including with a shot in the 14th minute that made it past the keeper but was cleared off the line by La Salle defender Megan Kida.  She finally broke through in the 21st minute, taking a shot from just inside the scoring line that lasered across the circle to slide into the far side of the goal.  She also assisted on the Tribe's next goal, starting off the corner with an insertion to Hughes, who set the ball up for senior Cammie Lloyd (Midlothian, Va.) to tee off and slam the ball into the back boards for a 6-0 lead going into the half.  La Salle had one last gasp before the horn, with Rialee Allen taking a shot that was blocked in space by a Tribe defender, and the Explorers also earned a corner opportunity as time expired, but were called for an infraction during the scrum and did not get a shot off.

W&M kept up the pressure in the second half, scoring out of a corner again early in the 41st minute.  This time it was the senior duo of MacLeod and Menges, playing together for the ninth year in a row, who started things off and sophomore Christie van de Kamp (Midlothian, Va.) providing the strike that found net.  It was van de Kamp's first career goal, after having made her first career assists on Friday night.  That goal chased Provost from the game with 14 saves and seven allowed in 42:34, and brought on Emelynn Sneary in goal for the Explorers.  She would get a rough welcome as well, when Hughes drove in along the baseline and popped up to backhand a shot at the near post that snuck in between keeper and post.  That goal, Hughes' second and W&M's eighth, would prove to be the final tally of the game despite 10 more shots from W&M and four more corners.  La Salle got going a little bit more as the game wore on and W&M swapped out starting goalkeeper Morgan Connor (Bedford, N.Y.) for junior Jessica Wiggins (Williamsburg, Va.), but Wiggins proved up to the task, making four saves in her 21 minutes of action and preserving the combined shutout in the face of two La Salle corners.

Starters
W&M: Morgan Connor (GK), Erin Menges, Annie Snead, Cata Days, Christie van de Kamp, Estelle Hughes, Booter Ellis, Cassidy Goodwin, Katleyn Rennyson, Cammie Lloyd, Emma MacLeod
La Salle: Emma Provost (GK), Eileen Dzwill, Chloe Lucky, Jess Hoffman, Nina Magnotta, Kendall Kreider, Logan Oh, Megan Kida, Mackenzie Karcher, Summer Pierson, Katie O'Grady

Inside the Numbers
- W&M outshot La Salle 40-6, including 22-1 in the first half.  The 40 shots are tied for eighth-most all-time, matching the 40 taken against VCU in 2002.
- The Tribe also led the game in penalty corners, 12-3, including 7-1 in the first half.  W&M scored on three of those corners, and six of 19 chances this weekend overall.
- Morgan Connor was not tested in her 49 minutes of action, and Jessica Wiggins made four saves in her 21 minutes of relief.  On the other end of the field, La Salle combined for 19 saves, 14 to starting goalkeeper Emma Provost, five to back-up Emelynn Sneary, and one defensive save (Meghan Kida).

Notes
Senior captain Katelyn Rennyson made her first start of the season ... Jessica Wiggins, who walked onto the team in the midst of last season, made her first career appearance in the second half ... Melanie Strik's first career goal was also the first point scored this season by the Tribe freshman class ... In addition to Strik and van de Kamp making their first career goals, Jenny McCann scored her first goal of the season ... All eight of W&M's assists went to four players, each with a pair of helpers (Menges, Snead, Hughes, and MacLeod) ... They are all tied with many others for 10th in school history for a single game ... Estelle Hughes set a career high with two goals and two assists ... The Tribe's eight combined assists are the second-most in school history, behind only the nine helpers made against Ursinus in 1994 ... The eight goals are tied for third all-time, behind nine-goal efforts against Lehigh in 1990 and Old Dominion in 1974 ... Erin Menges' two assists, her first of the year, lifted her into a tie for ninth all-time with 17 career assists.

Up Next
William & Mary wraps up its season-long homestand next weekend with a pair of games.  The Tribe opens Colonial Athletic Association play on Friday night with Hofstra at 5 p.m., before hosting Northeastern on Sunday at 1 p.m.