The Lincoln University women's soccer team kicked off their 2017 campaign on Thursday with a 3-1 win over Washington Adventist University in front of a large home crowd at Lions Stadium.

Diana Martinez (Kissimmee, fla./St. Cloud), in her collegiate debut scored twice and assisted on LU's third goal while Serena Melendrez (Las Cruces, N.M./Las Cruces) scored once to pace the Lions attack.  

Elsa Cortez scored the lone Shock goal.  Washington Adventist falls to 0-2 on the season.

Lincoln dominated play throughout much of the first half, outshooting the Shock 12-2 but were unable to put a score on the board until the 43:11 mark of the period when Melendrez received a cross pass from Martinez and put it past Shock goalie Laura Perez.

Martinez gave Lincoln a 2-0 lead 13 minutes into the second half as she dodged a couple of defenders to put the ball past Perez.    Six minutes later at the 64:22 mark with a crowd in front of the net, Cortez put the ball past Lions' goalkeeper Lena Rodriguez (Lockport, Ill./Joliet Catholic Academy) to cut the margin to 2-1.

The Lions answered just 95 seconds later when Martinez broke ahead on the WAU defender and took a perfect pass from freshman Cedar Davidson (Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada/Aurora) for her second goal of the game. Martinez finished the game with ten total shots, seven on goal.

Lincoln outshot the Shock 22-5 for the game, including a 16-3 advantage in shots on goal.  Rodriguez finished the game with two saves.  The Lions also took nine corner kicks to WAU's two.

The women's soccer team return to action on Saturday, September 2, 2017 when they host Holy Family University.  Kickoff at Lions Stadium is noon.