ITHACA, N.Y. -- Senior Caroline Allen scored seven goals, tying the highest total by a Big Red women's lacrosse player in a quarter-century, and Cornell raced out to a 13-3 lead before cruising to an 18-13 win over Marist on Wednesday afternoon on a snow-covered Schoellkopf Field. Cornell improved to 2-0 for the first time since 2016, while the Red Foxes slipped to 0-3.

Allen's seven goals were on off the school record and tied with seven other players who have tallied seven times in a game. It also moved her into the top 20 in career points all-time at Cornell with 125, while boosting her goal total to 90. She notched four goals in the first half and a hat trick in the second to lead three Cornell players with at least five points on the afternoon.

Both Grace Paletta and Katie Castiello had four goals and an assist for five points and Bridget Babcock ha a goal and two assists in the victory. Freshman Hilary Hoover won eight draws, won two ground balls and caused a turnover, Annie Thomas added five more draw wins and freshmen accounted for 14 of the team's 18 victories around the circle. Hoover's eight draws ranks fifth in a single game in school history. Reilly Fletcher was credited with a pair of caused turnovers and Katie McGahan made seven saves between the pipes, including six after halftime to hold off a hard-charging Marist squad. McGahan picked up her 16th career win in goal, sixth all-time at Cornell, while her saves total of 263 moved her from ninth to seventh on that chart.

Samantha Mehalick had herself a day for the Red Foxes, scoring three goals and winning half of the team's 14 draws. Alex DiChiara added a hat trick and Romy Villemure had two goals and an assist on the offensive end and added five draws and two caused turnovers. Devon Connolly also had two goals and an assist for Marist, while Delaney Galvin stopped 10 Big Red shots.

The Big Red led 13-5 at the break after going up 13-3, but was never really threatened despite the fact that Marist registered five of the game's final six goals over the last 13 minutes. Freshman Sophie Alois broke up the run with her first collegiate goal. 

Cornell held a 38-28 lead in shots and cleared the ball successfully on 21-of-22 occasions, forcing seven failed Marist clears in their 21 opportunities.
 

FIRST HALF

• After seven minutes of scoreless action, the Big Red scored two goals in the span of 40 seconds to make it 2-0.
• The visitors did the Big Red one better, finding the back of the net twice in just 21 seconds to knot the game at 2-2 after a Kelly George score with 21:06 remaining.
• Just 1:18 later, Caroline Allen scored her first goal of the night to trigger an 11-1 run over a span of 16:16 to make it 13-3.
• Marist never again got within the five-goal advantage the game ended with.
• Allen scored four goals during the run, while Castiello found the back of the net three times.
• Cornell out-shot the Red Foxes 22-10 at the break, but five saves by Marist goalkeeper Delaney Galvin kept the deficit from being worse than the 13-5 margin heading into the break.
 

SECOND HALF

• Allen scored her fourth goal of the night before Marist and the Big Red traded three-goal runs.
• The senior again scored twice in less than a minute midway through the second half to make it a nine-goal game (17-8).
• With an 18-9 lead and under 10 minutes to play, Marisy scored four times, including twice in the final minute, to bring the final score closer.
 

UP NEXT

• The Cornell women's lacrosse team will hit the road for the first time in 2020 when it visits Penn State on Sunday, Feb. 23 at 1 p.m. at Panzer Stadium in University Park, Pa.
• Penn State leads the all-time series 8-3, including three consecutive victories by the Nittany Lions.
• The Big Red's last win in the series came in 2016 on the road, a 10-7 Cornell win behind four goals by Joey Coffy and eight saves by Renee Poullott.