SAN DIEGO, Calif. – The Coastal Carolina women's lacrosse team held on for an 18-14 win over the San Diego State Aztecs on Saturday afternoon in San Diego, Calif. The Chanticleers improved to 7-3 on the season with the win while the loss dropped SDSU to 2-6 with its fourth-straight loss.
 
The Chants offense was led by Samantha Courtemanche (five goals) and Megan Busch (four goals, one assist) as the duo tallied hat tricks while Lauren Cremen, Avery Drouin, and Abbey Buchanan had two goals apiece.
 
On the defensive third, Claire Martell had a career-high 12 saves despite allowing 14 goals in the contest. A quartette of Anya McSorley, Emily D'Orsaneo, Avery Snyder, and Megan Bozzi each had one caused turnover apiece for the Chanticleers.
 
CCU's offense started early getting five-straight goals before the Aztecs were able to answer with one of their own. Drouin opened the scoring with an unassisted goal coming with just 2:45 expiring from the game clock to give the Chants a 1-0 advantage.
 
Coastal needed just three minutes to make it 2-0 as Busch scored the first of four goals. The next score came from Courtemanche, as the attacker spun around the defense with 21:37 remaining in the opening period off Kayla Downey's first of three assists to push the lead to 3-0 for CCU. Drouin hit Snyder in front of the net to add to the Chants' lead at 4-0 with 20:24 until halftime before Busch tallied her second goal with 1:11 minutes expiring from the game clock to give Coastal the 5-0 lead.
 
SDSU's Camdyn O'Donnell found the back of the net for the first goal for the Aztecs with 17:52 left in the first half as CCU led 5-1.
 
Just 1:14 later, the Chanticleers answered the San Diego State goal with a goal of their own to push the lead to 6-1 before Busch would score the hat-trick goal with 14:55 left until the break to put the Chants in front at 7-1.
 
The Aztecs' Morgan Delwiche cut into the CCU lead with her first goal of the season to make it 7-2 with 14:31 left in the first half.
 
Coastal answered as Courtemanche (13:57) and Buchanan (11:24) pushed the advantage to 9-2 before Bailey Brown found the back of the net with 2:36 as CCU held a 9-3 lead. Courtemanche scored the final goal of the first half with 32 seconds on the clock for the halftime score of 10-3.
 
Just as in the first half, the Chants opened the scoring as Cremen needed just under two minutes off the second Downey assist of the match to push the Coastal lead to 11-3, the largest of the contest.
 
Host SDSU would cut the lead to 11-8 as Caitlin Jones (27:12), Emily Resnick (26:37), Brown (26:02), Jones (25:48), and Cailin Young (23:21) would cut into the eight-goal advantage of the Chants.
 
Coastal's Buchanan (22:38) and Busch stopped the Aztec run to push the advantage to 13-8 with 21:44 remaining to play.
 
San Diego State's Jones tallied the hat trick with 21 minutes left to play to pull the host to within 13-9 before CCU's Courtemanche (20:24, 19:39) answered with back-to-back goals to make it 15-9 to keep the home team at bay.
 
The Aztecs got goals from Brown (18:48) and Resnick (16:36) to cut the Chanticleers' advantage to four at 15-11 before Bozzi (15:50) and Cremen (11:11) answered back to push the visitor's lead to 17-11.
 
In the final 10 minutes, Young (9:06), Jones (5:57), and Julia Sheehan (1:27) would sandwich the final Coastal goal from Downey (8:24) for the final margin.
 
Coastal Carolina will remain in San Diego to take on UC Davis in a neutral site match-up on Monday, March 29. The opening draw is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. ET.
 
For complete coverage of CCU women's lacrosse, follow the Chants on social media @CoastalWLax (Twitter), facebook.com/CCUChanticleers (Facebook), @GoCCUSports (Instagram) or visit the official home of Coastal Carolina Athletics at goccusports.com.