Photo by: Tony Leon/ActionWestPhotography.com

WHITTIER, Calif. – In a prequel to next weekend's conference tournament semifinal, the Whittier College women's lacrosse team was plagued by a slow start as Redlands earned its second win of the season over the Poets, 19-11, on Sunday afternoon at Memorial Stadium.

With the win, the Bulldogs will enter the first even SCIAC tournament as the No. 2 seed while the Poets will be seeded third. Whittier and Redlands will square off for a third time this season next Saturday afternoon at Whittier.

Trillium Santin and Carolyn Mukai gave Whittier a 2-1 lead at the 20:16 mark with a pair of scores in the first 10 minutes of the game but the Bulldogs ended the half on a 9-0 run which proved the difference.

Two of the Bulldogs' goals came on free-position attempts with the other seven recorded as unassisted scores.

Mukai scored her second goal of the game at 20:13 of the second half and Alex Holtz made it a 10-4 game with her only score of the afternoon at 28:15 but Redlands answered with three straight goals to take a 13-4 lead.

Mukai cashed in on a free-position at 23:09 and big sister Emily Mukai added her only goal at 16:27 to make it 14-6. Carolyn Mukai pulled the purple and gold as close as seven goals second FPS at 12:03 but that was as close as the Poets would get.

Redlands scored three straight to go up 17-7 at the 9:57 mark and despite scoring four of the final six goals, the deficit was too much for the Poets to overcome.

As a team the Poets had seven goal scorers led by Carolyn Mukai who put away five scores. She finished the regular season with 64 total goals.

Amy Cirbo had four draw controls while Carolyn had a game-high five.

Claremont-M-S is the top seed in tournament and will play either fourth seeded Pomona-Pitzer fifth seeded Occidental. The tournament semifinals and championships will take place at Whittier.