After falling on Saturday to the Colby Mules (8-2), ranked sixth nationally in Division III, the women’s lacrosse team ended its seven-game losing streak on Sunday against the St. John Fisher College Cardinals (1-8). Wesleyan’s Cardinals (3-8) have fallen victim to a tough schedule this year, with six of their eight losses coming at the hands of top-20 teams. The team earned a dearly needed win over St. John Fisher in the schools’ second-ever meeting, after the first game, last March in Hilton Head, S.C., ended in a 13-10 Wesleyan victory. This year’s match was nearly identical, as Wes walked off Smith Field with a 12-10 victory.

Fisher’s early 2-1 lead on Sunday was its only time on top of the scoreboard in the match, and it came at the 22:55 mark of the opening half. Wesleyan then scored the next four goals for a 5-2 cushion, which they held going into the second half. After Wesleyan went up 9-6 with 23:05 remaining in the match, Fisher made a comeback, scoring three straight goals in a span of 6:21 to bring about the second tie of the match at 9-9.

Jess Chukwu ’11 broke this deadlock at 11:43 with a long run from midfield and a high shot to the left corner of the goal. This completed Chukwu’s hat trick and upped her team-leading goal total to 26. Kayla Ellman ’13 spotted Wesleyan an 11-9 edge just 13 seconds later, as she controlled the draw (Wesleyan had a decided 20-4 edge on draws) and raced 60 yards to score her second goal of the game. Fisher netted a goal at 9:32 to make it a one-goal game at 11-10. Ellman made it a hat trick at 6:22 when she converted a free-position shot into the game’s final tally. Though there was no further scoring, Fisher had two free-position attempts down the stretch, but goalie Maggie Drowica ’12 came up big for Wesleyan each time. She stopped one attempt with two minutes remaining, and then made another dramatic save at the one-minute mark. Fisher connected on just three of nine free-position attempts, and Drowica closed out the game with 11 stops.

Eileen Gaffney ’12 and Catherine Taibi ’13 each had two-goal performances, and Allie Lynch ’11 dished out three assists, giving her 30 on the year, just one shy of the Wesleyan record set in 2007.

The big win against Fisher came just a day after a hard-fought loss against nationally-ranked Colby. Despite the Mules’ lofty ranking as the sixth best team in Division III, the Cardinals hung tough with Colby, scoring nine goals on the normally stingy Mule defense but losing 13-9.

Wesleyan will look to build on the momentum from this win and improve upon its slow start to the season when the Cards return to action Saturday against Little Three and NESCAC rival Williams on Smith Field.