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The High Point University women's lacrosse team advanced to the Big South Championship with a 17-8 win over Winthrop on Friday afternoon. Senior Mackenzie Carroll notched six points on three goals and three assists to lead HPU's offense. This will be the Panthers second consecutive Big South title game appearance.

"We came out strong like we have been lately and we were solid on the offensive and defensive sides of the ball," said HPU head coach Lyndsey Boswell. "We don't know our opponent for Sunday yet but it doesn't matter at this point, we just need to focus on our game and we'll be ready to play for the championship."
 
The Panthers move to 13-5 on the season with the win while the Eagles finish with an 8-11 overall record.
Carroll now has 77 points this season, which is one shy of Grace Gaeng's HPU single-season record of 78 from 2011. In addition to Carroll's three goals, senior Alec Perry notched three goals while senior Sara Kuhlman tallied five points on a pair of goals and three assists in the semifinal game.

HPU struck first with two goals in the first two minutes off two feeds from Carroll. Carroll found senior Christie Dougherty in front of the net for the first score before connecting with sophomore Emily Meier 30 seconds later to put HPU up 2-0 early.

Following a Winthrop goal by attacker Danielle Ellis, Meier tallied her second score off a pass from senior Sara Kuhlman to push HPU's lead back to two. Kuhlman then dished out a pass to Perry, who sent a shot by Winthrop's keeper for her first of the day.

Winthrop answered again to bring the score to 4-2 before HPU tacked on a pair from Perry and sophomore Leah Pace. Winthrop scored again to bring the score to 7-3 before HPU ended the half on a 4-0 run to finish off the half up seven, 10-3.

HPU continued its run with the first three goals of the second half including two from Kuhlman to push the lead to 13-3. Winthrop countered with two goals including Jenna Kasamarik's 66^th of the season to bring it back to 13-5 before HPU rattled off two straight by Dougherty and senior Jasmine Jordan.

Winthrop scored three straight to cut the lead back to seven, 15-8 before High Point finished off the contest with the last two goals of the game for the 17-8 win.

HPU held a 28-20 advantage in shots and picked up 16 ground balls to Winthrop's seven. Junior Julia Burns made three saves in each half for the Panthers to pick up the win.

High Point will be back in action on Sunday at 2 p.m. in the Big South title game. The Panthers will face Davidson, which defeated Longwood 12-9  in Friday's other semifinal game.