ST. PAUL, Minn. - Despite trailing 8-1 and 9-2 in the first half, Concordia-St. Paul women's lacrosse (5-6, 1-2 GLIAC) persevered to score their first conference win of the season, topping Davenport (1-9, 0-1 GLIAC) 15-14 on Sunday afternoon at the Concordia Dome at Sea Foam Stadium.

The Golden Bears had the distinction of facing a GLIAC opponent in their conference opener for the third-straight time, and it looked as if it would be a third-straight conference loss as the Panthers scored the game's first two goals before Sara Kaiser netted her first of four goals on the day just under two minutes into the game. Davenport would then score six consecutive goals, claiming an 8-1 lead just over a minute into the second quarter.

In the first quarter, Davenport held a 9-2 shot margin and CSP had committed 15 fouls to Davenport's two in building the early lead.

Davenport continued to hold its seven goal lead for nearly half of the second quarter when Lauren Sheets scored her first of three goals with 8:32 to play before halftime.

Sheets' goal was in the midst of a 3-1 spurt for CSP, cutting into the margin to bring it within five goals, 9-4 with 7:37 to play in the half after Laurelle Weisbrod scored her first of two goals.

Davenport didn't shy away, though, claiming a seemingly important goal to make it 10-4 with just over four minutes to play and held CSP scoreless until halftime.

By halftime, Concordia evened the shot margin at 14 apiece with Davenport committing six turnovers in the second quarter to CSP's two.

The tone was set with the second quarter underlying statistic reversals, even if the scoreboard wasn't showing it.

The Sheets goal at 8:32 of the second quarter started a prolonged 13-2 scoring run for Concordia, with Sheets starting the run and scoring the 10th and 11th goals back-to-back within 55 seconds of each other to tie the score at 11 with 12:37 to play in the game.

Sydney Smith added another nearly three minutes later for the 12-11 lead, and CSP would build their lead to 15-11 on Morgan Haapala's goal with just over five minutes left to cap an 8-0 scoring run from 1:30 of the third to 5:04 of the fourth quarter. The larger 13-2 run spanned nearly 38 and a half minutes of play.

In the final tally, CSP held a convincing 37-24 shot margin, 25-19 in ground balls, committed five fewer turnovers (19-24) and their aggressive play led to an 18-9 margin in caused turnovers.

From the second through fourth quarters, Concordia held a 35-15 shot margin and committed seven fewer turnovers, 19-12.

Kaiser led the Golden Bear offense with four goals with Sheets adding three while Weisbroad also had a three-point day with two goals and an assist. Smith (2g), Kennedy Bolander (2g), Taylor Preece (1g, 1a) and Kayleigh Nelson (2a) each had two points.

In the midfield, Maddie Westberg had four caused turnovers, three draw controls and three shots and Anna Fisher had six draw controls while the defense was led by Claire Flahaven's four caused turnovers as six players had two or more caused turnovers.

Concordia played each of its two goalies, with Candace McDole starting before Maddy Huebner finished the game and picked up the win, securing four saves and adding a pair of ground balls.

The Panthers were led by Christine Steffes with her first four goals of the year while Blakely Malpass added three goals.

The Golden Bears return to non-conference play on Friday, March 31 with a road game at Missouri Western, facing the Griffons in a rescheduled game from February 19 with an 11 a.m. start time in St. Joseph, Missouri.