Grantham, PA – No. 17 Messiah College scored three goals in the first nine minutes and stunned No. 5 William Smith in a 4-1 win. Four different Falcons tallied in the victory, and the Messiah defense allowed just five total shots to the Herons.
 
Each of the three leading scorers for Messiah—Moriah Pfautz, Carissa Gehman, and Taylor Holt—scored in a wild first nine minutes. The Falcons dominated at the start and seemingly could do no wrong as they earned great looks at the cage. Pfautz tallied first just 2:01 into the game, with Gehman picking up a nifty assist on a ball played quickly to Pfautz for the score.
 
Messiah continued to stay in William Smith territory and, just over minutes later, they earned their first penalty corner. Kristin Donohue and Holt executed perfectly to set up a powerful strike from Gehman at the top, with her shot rocketing to the back of the cage for the 2-0 lead. Less than two minutes later Holt pushed one through herself off a forward pass from Nicole Wilkerson.
 
William Smith called timeout after the third goal, but the damage was already done. Hannah Wood almost chipped into the Messiah lead in the 19th minute, but her shot from the middle of the circle hit off the crossbar and was cleared away. From that point forward Messiah continued to dominate territory and they outshot the Herons 6-2 in the first-half.
 
In the second-half Messiah continued to hold long stretches of possession. In the 54th minute another penalty corner set up the fourth goal, this one off the stick of Casie Stief on the back post. The tally was her second of the season.
 
William Smith did get on the board with under five minutes to play, doing so off a penalty corner set to Hannah Wood. The Messiah defense almost turned away the play, but a rebound from Wood's first shot fell back to her stick for another attempt that went through.
 
Despite allowing the late tally, the Messiah defense was terrific as they held the Herons to just a single shot on goal, a startling statistic considering William Smith entered the game with a No. 10-ranked scoring offense (3.94 goals per game) and with both Wood (No. 4) and Alessandra Patrizio (No. 13) in the top-15 for individual goals per game average.
 
Messiah moved to 13-5 with the win, and they're now also 10-0 at home. They're 11-1 in their past 12 games, with their lone loss coming by a 1-0 score at NCAA Division II Shippensburg on Oct. 15.
 
The Falcons will now prepare for the start of the MAC Commonwealth Tournament, which starts on Wednesday, Nov. 4. Messiah is the No. 1 seed and will host No. 4 Albright College at 7:00 p.m.