SCRANTON, Pa. -- Marywood defeated the Arcadia women's lacrosse team 12-7 on Saturday afternoon at Pacer Field.
 
The Knights now stand at 0-4 on the season and Marywood improved to 2-1.
 
The Knights and Pacers played an even second half, each team scoring five goals, but the Scarlet & Grey were unable to overcome a slow start to the contest in falling behind 7-2 by halftime.
 
Gina Babcock opened the scoring for Marywood in the 22nd minute giving the home team a 1-0 lead before Jess Kaye leveled the score at 1-1 at the 20:09 mark. The Pacers answered with four straight goals to assume a 5-1 lead at the 15:27 mark.
 
Eight minutes later, Kaye notched her second goal of the contest to bring AU within 5-2, but two more Pacer goals in the final 6:30 gave the hosts a five-goal cushion at the break.
 
Kaye opened the scoring just 1:07 into the second half, pumping in her third goal of the game off a feed from Julia Imbert to put the score at 7-3. The Pacers quickly answered to restore a five-goal cushion at 8-3, but Emily Covert's goal with 26:09 to play pulled the Knights to within 8-4.
 
Four is as close as AU would pull, the Pacers responded with three straight goals to go up 11-4 with 21:51 left. The Knights had one final surge in them, scoring three straight, including Kaye's fourth of the contest, to make it 11-7 with 8:54 left, but the Pacers added an insurance goal with just under five minutes to play and held on for the win.
 
The Pacers held slight edges in shots (33-26), draw controls (12-9) and ground balls (31-24). The Knights earned 13 free position shots to just eight for Marywood.
 
Veandra Selby made 12 saves in the cage for the Knights, while her counterpart, Mary Leahy, came up with 12 stops as well.
 
In addition to her four goals, Kaye added three draw controls. Caroline Toner had three draw controls, a pair of caused turnovers and picked up five ground balls. Michaela Ferlow caused three turnovers and scooped up four ground balls, and Kirsten Pedicone caused four turnovers and came away with four ground balls.
 
Gwyneth Gleason scored four times for the Pacers, and added five draw controls, six ground balls and three caused turnovers.
 
Arcadia returns to the field on Tuesday at Haverford beginning at 7 p.m.