Behind nine goals from Meg Hawthorne, the Centre women's lacrosse team held off Berry College for an 18-15 victory Saturday at Farris Stadium.

Centre scored the first four goals of the game and never trailed, but the Colonels couldn't put away their future conference mates until Hawthorne, a sophomore midfielder from Cary, N.C., scored to go up 17-15 with 3:22 left with Sarah Mastey (Chattanooga, Tenn.) adding an insurance goal in the closing seconds.

Emily Madden (Louisville, Ky.) added four goals for the Colonels while Mastey contributed two. Jenny Miller led Berry with seven goals while Kristan Dziurzynski had four.

Both teams scored in spurts throughout the game with Centre scoring the first four goals and Berry answering with the next three. In addition to Madden, Andrea Merchak (Lexington, Ky.), Annie Jonakin (Signal Mountain, Tenn.) and Audrey Powers (Chattanooga, Tenn.) scored four straight for Centre, only to see Berry answer with three goals again to cut the margin to 8-6.

Hawthorne came back with three straight goals before Miller answered with two to cut the score to 11-8 at halftime.

Miller scored three more times as Berry outscored Centre 4-2 over the first 10 minutes of the second half to pull to 13-12. However, Hawthorne scored twice and Madden once as the Colonels went back up 16-12 with 10 minutes to play. Berry would again follow with threee straight goals to make the score 16-15 with 3:58 left before Hawthorne and Mastey added the final two goals.

Overall, Centre outshot Berry 41-26 for the game. Berry's Taylor Martin made 13 saves to six for Centre's Lauren Esterle (Louisville, Ky.). The Colonels controlled 25 draws to Berry's nine and turned the ball over eight times to Berry's 11.

Centre improves to 7-1 on the year with the win and returns to action against Washington and Jefferson on Mondat at 5 p.m. at Farris Stadium.