ASU Women’s Lacrosse: Sun Devils soar to first win in program history behind Clayton’s 7-goal game

(Photo: Jack Harris/WCSN)

After a long 18 months, the Arizona State women’s lacrosse picked up an emphatic win over Kennesaw State on Friday in the program’s inaugural contest.

In their first-ever game, the Sun Devils (1-0) came out shooting, prevailing to a 14-6 road victory over the Owls (0-1) behind a 7-goal performance from co-captain Kerri Clayton.

“First win, first game,” Clayton said. “We were a little shaky in the beginning, it’s the first game and we have a lot of freshmen so that’s to be expected, but we picked it up and we knew what we had to do to make changes which we did.”

Despite 25 first-half fouls from ASU, the Sun Devils took a 1-0 lead within the first minute of the game when freshman attacker Graci Fulkerson struck the back of the net after scooping up a misplaced place pass from her teammate.

Kennesaw State answered back rather quickly tying up the game, but the Sun Devils would go on a 3-0 run after that, with goals from Julia Burns, Emily Glagolev and Clayton. Burns and Glagolev would finish the game with two goals apiece while Clayton buried her seven scores on just 13 shots.

“I didn’t know I had seven goals until people started telling me,” Clayton said.

With ASU leading 4-1, the Owls scored two goals in 18 seconds to cut the Sun Devils lead to 4-3 with about 7 minutes left in the first half. Clayton and Burns would each score again before the end of the half to give the Sun Devils a 6-3 lead. With just 23 seconds left in the half, the Owls’ Izzy Palermo got one back for KSU, cutting the Sun Devils lead to 6-4 at the intermission.

Freshman Maddy Hunter started the scoring early in the second half in, collecting a goal just 18 seconds in to put the Sun Devils back up by three. Hunter would later finish the game with two goals.

The Owls were held to only two goals in the second half, three less than the five Clayton scored for the Sun Devils in the second period alone.

“I think our defense was very disciplined,” coach Courtney Martinez Connor said. “We pride ourselves on playing a team-style defense and they certainly played that to the epitome especially in the second half. They had each one another’s backs and they did not leave any open goals.

The Sun Devils sophomore goalkeeper, Berkeley Bonneau, had a stand out first game and recorded ten saves.

“Since I’m a goalie I’m able to communicate a lot to the defense and everyone picks off that great, everyone’s talking to one another and that’s why we were able to cut off the slides and cut off the shooters from even taking shots,” Bonneau said. “Even if they were taking shots our defense was right on top of them, so they were poorly shot shots causing me to be able to make a save and for me to get to back to the offense.”

The Sun Devils couldn’t have scripted a better inaugural game.

“We were incredibly proud of the team’s effort today from start to finish. They played hard for 60 minutes which was one of our main goals,” Martinez said. “Obviously to compete against the opponent is another and they did that with a full effort.”

ASU looks to improve to 2-0 on the season as they face Stetson University on Sunday, hoping to add another quick milestone to its brand new record book.

Said Clayton: “We had a really good win and I’m excited to move on with the rest of the season.”