SALT LAKE CITY – The Westminster women's lacrosse team will spend the weekend in Pennsylvania for a pair of games against NCAA D-II teams. Westminster begins on Friday against West Virginia Wesleyan at 11 a.m. (MT). They will then face No. 17 Indiana (Pa.) at 9 p.m. (MT) on Saturday. Both games will be played at the Southpointe Fieldhouse in Canonsburg, Pa.
 
On the Web
Neither of the two games will have live video or stats available online. Updates will be provided on the Westminster Athletics Twitter account (@wc_griffins) and at WestminsterGriffins.com once they become available.
 
Griffins Notebook
Westminster heads east at 0-1 on the season after suffering a 12-8 loss at Colorado Mesa on Feb. 14. They took 16 shots in the game and put 12 of them on cage. The Griffins have recorded four assists and they scored on 33.3 percent of their free-position shots.
 
Leaders
Maddie Haynes scored a team-high three goals at Colorado Mesa while recording one assist to total four points. Katie Adams added two goals and Kira Heiden had one goal and one assist for two points. Morgan Bakarich and Molly Arnold scored the other goals for the Griffins while Maggie HerrNeckar and Makenzie Hekking each had one assist. Haynes led the team with six shots and HerrNeckar had a team-best four draw controls.
 
In Cage
Hekking played the entire game in goal at Mesa and finished with six saves and a .333 save percentage. She faced 23 shots in total and allowed 12 goals. Hekking made four stops on nine free-position attempts against her.
 
Against This Week's Opponents
Westminster will be facing both West Virginia Wesleyan and Indiana for the first time in school history this weekend. The two teams are among seven NCAA D-II teams on this year's schedule as Westminster makes the transition to becoming a D-II member themselves.
 
Recapping 2014
The Griffins are coming off a 2014 campaign in which they finished 8-7 overall and advanced to the championship game of the RMWLL Tournament. The team averaged 15.2 goals per game last season with five players totaling at least 25 goals during the year. They surrendered 12.1 goals per contest and claimed 235 draw controls for a 54.5 winning percentage.
 
What is Returning
The 2015 squad welcomes back 12 players from last season, including HerrNeckar who was named WCLA Second Team All-American. HerrNeckar was second on the team last season with 43 goals and 56 points. Heiden is also back after scoring 37 goals and recording 13 assists as a freshman. Haynes, another sophomore, scored 30 goals with nine assists while taking the second-most shots on the team with 74.
 
Westminster also returns Hekking in cage this season. Hekking is the only player to see time in goal for the Griffins in the past three seasons and she begins the season as the school's al-time leader in wins, saves, saves per game, and goals-against-average. Hekking has a .435 save percentage in her career and she posted a career-best .456 save percentage last season.
 
Climbing the Charts
HerrNeckar has been one of the most prolific players in Westminster history and she currently second in school history in points (210), goals (171), shots (299), and draw controls (119). The senior holds the school record with 159 ground balls and 31 free-position goals. In her career, HerrNeckar has averaged 57 goals per season and she tallied a career-high 79 goals during the 2012 season. She had her stretch of 22-straight games with a goal snapped at Colorado Mesa on Feb, 14, but she has at least one point in 23-straight outings.
 
Looking Ahead
Westminster will return to the road next week for games at Fort Lewis (Colo.) on March 7 and then neutral site games with Wentworth Tech (Ma.) and Elms (Ma.) on March 10-11 in Hilton Head, S.C.