Old Westbury, N.Y. - In what may go down as the biggest regular-season victory in the 12-year history of the Georgian Court University women's lacrosse program, the Lions strutted onto the campus of #13 NYIT and shocked the nationally-ranked Bears by a score of 18-17.

With its first-ever triumph over a ranked program, GCU improves to 1-2 on the year while NYIT slips to 0-1 after its season-opening setback.

The Lions came out of the gates hungry as the road team netted the first four scores of the contest to take a 4-0 lead 5:49 into the game. The Bears responded by burying four of the half's next five tallies to inch to within one (5-4) at the 17:28 mark.The GCU offense was firing on all cylinders as the Lions attacked with five of the game's next six scores to take a seemingly-commanding 10-5 lead with 6:38 left in the half.

NYIT appeared to find its groove at this point as the home team nailed seven straight goals to take its first lead of the game at 12-10 (24:17). The two teams proceeded to tie the score five times over the next 16:59. With the Bears leading 17-16 (7:59), Nicole Barbella knotted the score at 17-all with her second goal of the game at the 7:18 mark. This set the stage for Samantha Fernandez who proceeded to snap the stalemate for the final time (5:08) to secure a most memorable win for the Lions.

Fernandez finished the afternoon with five goals, the first of which marked career goal #100 for the reigning CACC Player of the Year. Arianna Quinlan exploded for a game-high seven tallies while Olivia Geller, Angelina Palermo, Shaine Sauter and Xena Valenzuela also found the back of the net in the victory.

Amber Neumann was outstanding in net for GCU, collecting 15 saves in the complete-game "W". 

The Lions look to ride this momentum into Friday's home contest (weather-permitting) vs. Shippensburg University (3:00 p.m.).