CASTLETON, Vt. – The Castleton University women's lacrosse team fell behind early and was unable to muster enough offense to keep pace with Colby-Sawyer Wednesday night, falling to the Chargers 19-9 in non-conference action.

Castleton falls to 1-2 on the year with the loss, while Colby-Sawyer improves to 2-0 on the young campaign after the battle between the former North Atlantic Conference rivals. Colby-Sawyer held a 39-26 edge in shots, 31-18 edge in ground balls and went 13-for-23 on the clear. Castleton was just 5-of-17 clearing the ball and committed 27 turnovers in the contest. The Spartans dominated the draw, however, winning 20 of the game's 30 draw controls.

Erin Shuttle continued her red-hot start to the season, scoring four times for Castleton to bring her season total to 16 goals through just three games. She also had a game-high eight draw controls and caused a team-high three turnovers. Morgan Derosia added three scores and seven draw controls for Castleton while added four ground balls in the contest. Aubra Linn and Tien Connor each scored for Castleton, and Ryanne Mix, Megan Krumm and Neema Modeste had assists. Raven Payne suffered the loss in goal, making 13 saves in the contest.

Briana Couture racked up a game-high seven goals, but was followed closely by Sarah Morin's six scores and one assist as both Chargers totaled seven points. Caroline Tompkins and Hannah Marquis scored twice each, while Jamie Wood had a pair of assists for Colby-Sawyer. Jess Tattersall was strong on defense, picking up three ground balls, five draw controls and four caused turnovers. Kailyn Lapham earned the win in goal, making six saves on the night.

The Chargers ran out to a 4-0 lead eight minutes into the contest, but Castleton rattled off a pair of goals unanswered following a Spartan timeout. Following Colby-Sawyer's fourth goal of the day, head coach Josh Dionne called timeout to re-group his squad. Castleton scored less than one minute later, as Connor broke into the scoring column for the Spartans with an assist from Mix. Shuttle made it a 4-2 game two minutes later with her 13th goal of the season, but Colby-Sawyer rattled off five goals unanswered from there to take a commanding 9-2 lead. Shuttle, Derosia and Linn added three more goals for Castleton going into halftime, but the Chargers kept pace by scoring twice in that span to make it 11-5 heading into the break.

Colby-Sawyer put the game away quickly in the second half, scoring four straight goals out of halftime to push the lead to 10, 15-5. Castleton cut into the lead less than two minutes later on another goal from Shuttle, but two more scores by Colby-Sawyer—both from Couture—gave the Chargers a 17-6 lead and kept the clock running for the better part of the half. Derosia scored her second of the day with 10:18 remaining to cut the gap back to 10, 17-7, then both sides went scoreless for nearly eight minutes. Shuttle stopped the drought with her fourth goal of the game with 2:29 to play, and Derosia quickly made it 17-9 when she scored just 18 seconds later. Colby-Sawyer tacked on two more goals late, however, closing the game out with its 19-9 final score.

Castleton continues its early-season homestand Sunday afternoon when it hosts Fitchburg State at 1 p.m.