LEBANON, Ill. – The women's lacrosse team will look to pull off two more monumental wins to keep their postseason hopes alive, as they will trek out West to Missouri to face a pair of conference foes to put a wrap on their 2026 regular season slate. 

On Friday, April 24th, the Bearcats will take on the No.24 Rockhurst University in Kansas City at 4:00 PM CT at Bourke Field. Then on Sunday, April 26th, McKendree will head a bit south to Liberty, Missouri, and face the Cardinals of William Jewell College in an 11:00 AM CT match. 

Both games will be streamed live and on demand on the GLVC Sports Network with a subscription/download purchase required. Live stats will also be made available to the public. Tickets for the Rockhurst game can be purchased over at rockhursthawks.com. 

Looking at the GLVC Women's Lacrosse Championship Tournament Field, the University of Indianapolis and Maryville University have both clinched two of the four available spots. McKendree (2-3 GLVC) will need Missouri Western State University (3-2) to lose both their games this week as the Griffons hold the tiebreaker after beating the Bearcats 10-8 on April 17th. Rockhurst (4-1) should secure a spot with at least a split in this week's slate, but a 0-2 mark would give McKendree the tiebreaker edge. 

SCOUTING THE LAST OUTINGS 

The women's lacrosse team had split in their final home matches of the 2026 season campaign with a win over Quincy University, but a setback to MoWest, as the squad sits at 2-3 in conference play and 10-5 overall.  

Against MWSU, It was a one-and-two seesaw affair between the Bearcats and Griffons throughout the first half of play. Freshman attacker Elora Waardenburg (Cobble Hill, British Columbia, Canada) notched the game's first to go through the posts after sprinting inside off the feed by sophomore Ariyah LaFrance (Akwesasne, N.Y.). MoWest was able to keep McKendree at bay for the rest of the initial period while getting two goals of their own to drop in. Junior midfielder Lexi Macleod (Cold Lake, Alberta, Canada) got herself on the board for two in the second quarter, along with Waardenburg also tallying her second of the contest 10 ticks off a draw control in a full-on attack mode. However, the Griffons would obtain the momentum to end the half, as they were also able to get downhill and sling a shot sail in as the horn sounded to close out on a 5-2 run and lead 7-4 at the halfway point. The Waardenburg & Macleod show would go on in the third period, as Macleod tacked on two more to put her at four at the moment, whereas Waardenburg got her third to find the back of the net for a hat-trick. The MoWest lead still was at three as both teams went to their huddle to begin the fourth and final quarter. The Griffons started off the final 15 minutes of play with their 11th goal a little under five minutes in. Yet, a free-position conversion four minutes later by Macleod sparked life into the Bearcats. MoWest extended their edge back to four, but McKendree would make one more final push, as junior midfielder Mackenzie Stroisch (Arnold, Mo.) caught a pass that was almost inches out of her reach and fired it to cut the deficit to three. A sneak-in shot by the sophomore midfielder Abby Drinkwalter (Peterborough, Ontario, Canada) put the game at a two-point margin. McKendree was able to obtain the subsequent draw control, but a dropped feed into the center led to turnover by the Bearcats, giving MoWest the opportunity to run out the clock and win the conference match 12-10. Macleod put up a season-high five goals on seven shot attempts overall and on the goal, plus a game-high seven draw controls with a ground ball and a caused turnover. Waardenburg was the other Bearcat to record a hat-trick, as she had three goals on five shots and one ground ball. Drinkwalter and Stroisch each had one goal to round out the offense, as the latter also contributed two assists, two ground balls, a caused turnover, and three draw controls. Junior goalkeeper Amber Hayden (Woburn, Mass.) played all 60:00 minutes guarding the net and came away with 15 saves, a ground ball, and her fourth career assist. 

Against Quincy, the Hawks held the Bearcats scoreless in the first period of play, McKendree started to find their footing in the second after Ariyah LaFrance gave her squad their first goal of the game off a breakaway clear. The New York native dropped in another one after an answer by the Hawks to put the opposing lead back to one, before senior attacker Jayna Barnden (Calgary, Alberta, Canada) scored her first of the day after missing the last two outings with an injury to tie the match at three apiece heading into the half. A 4-2 quarter by Quincy put themselves back in the driver's seat, as freshman midfielder Dom Neville (San Mateo, Calif.) notched her seventh goal in her young career, while the other freshman in Waardenburg put in a tip-in shot off the feed inside to knot the game at five. With one more period to take it all, Waardenburg opened up with her second of the game and 35th of the year, as Macleod responded to her season-high in the last game with a score to bring McKendree to within one, but Quincy answered with their ninth in the game with 9:56 left in regulation. LaFrance brought the Bearcats back to one two minutes later after a close-range shot, with both sides battling it out for the next several minutes of play. With 1:24 left on the clock, Waardenburg caused a monumental turnover by Quincy, to where she pushed it over to Stroisch as she flung it into the back of the net to tie it at nine. Macleod obtained the subsequent draw control, to which the Bearcats would hold on to the ball and wind the game clock down, until Waardenburg made a move behind the cage and dumped to LaFrance for the one-two punch to take their first lead of the entire game with still 19 ticks left. McKendree won the draw control once again, but after immediately turning it over, the Hawks mismanaged the clock and could not get a shot off in time to give the Bearcats their second conference win of the season 10-9. Waardenburg ended the game with three goals, including her first career game-winning goal, to go with a pair of assists, two ground balls, and two caused turnovers. LaFrance also notched a hat-trick of three goals, plus a trio of assists for six total points, while also tallying two ground balls, a caused turnover, and a draw control. With a goal and an assist, Macleod picked up seven draw controls to go with a ground ball and a pair of draw controls. Hayden played all game in the net and recorded 15 saves, two ground balls, and a caused turnover. It is the 14th time in her career coming up with 15 or more savers. 

HISTORY SHOWCASE 

Against Rockhurst, this will be the 14th meeting between the two schools, as the Hawks have won each of the last six games head-to-head. Before that, McKendree won six of the seven prior matchups, including by just one goal (13-12) in both of the most recent two in the 2021 season. Overall, Rockhurst leads 7-6 dating back to 2014. 

Against Jewell, it will only be the fifth meeting all-time, dating back to 2024, as the series is tied at two apiece. The Bearcats snagged both outings in the 2024 season by an average margin of +10.5, where they lost the most recent two by an average of –4.5. The series is also split evenly from games in both Liberty and Lebanon. 

KNOW THE FOES 

The Hawks are appearing in this week's IWLCA Division II Coaches' Poll at No.24 in the country. They sit at 11-2 overall and 4-1 in conference action. In their last outing, they lost to No.3 UIndy 7-20 on the road, but have won five straight prior to that. The only other blemish to their schedule was a 7-11 setback to then-No.15 Regis University in Colorado in mid-March. Picked third in this year's GLVC Preseason Coaches Poll, Rockhurst has yet to clinch a spot in the conference's postseason tournament. 

The Cardinals have not had the ideal season after being picked last in the conference's preseason poll. They are currently 1-11 overall with a 0-5 mark in GLVC play, as their only victory on the year thus far was a 20-4 win at home against Ottawa University (Kan.) on February 18th. Since then, Jewell has reeled off 10 straight losses. 

NCAA's TOP 25 (as of 4/22/26) 

McKENDREE 

Team: 

• Ground balls per game (15th – 21.7) 
• Save percentage (3rd – 55.8%) 
• Shots on goal per game (22nd – 23.7) 

Individual: 

• Jayna Barnden –– free position goals per game (23rd – 0.8), free position percentage (22nd – 60.0%), goals per game (16th – 3.7), points per game (12th – 5.4), shots per game (12th – 7.6), shots on goal per game (5th – 6.4) 
• Amber Hayden –– save percentage (2nd – 54.9%), total saves (9th – 161), saves per game (4th – 12.4), shot percentage (1st – 100%) 
• Rylee Fox –– shot percentage (1st – 100%) 

ROCKHURST 

Team: 

• Draw control percentage (7th – 65.8%) 
• Draw controls per game (6th – 17.2) 
• Free position percentage (6th – 58.3%) 
• Scoring margin (20th – +5.5) 
• Scoring offense (14th – 15.2) 
• Shot percentage (10th – 49.9%) 
• Shots on goal per game (25th – 23.3) 
• Win percentage (8th – 84.6%) 

Individual: 

• Kylee Pickens –– draw controls per game (2nd – 11.2) 
• Elise Magee –– free position goals per game (2nd – 1.3), free position percentage (2nd – 77.3%), goals per game (25th – 3.4) 
• Lily Lemcke –– shot percentage (1st – 100%) 
• Becca Reynolds –– shot percentage (1st – 100%) 

WILLIAM JEWELL 

Team: 

• Shot percentage –– (21st – 47.7%) 

Individual: 

• Kennedy Madison –– shot percentage (1st – 100%) 

LOOKING AHEAD 

Pending how McKendree closes out the regular season this week will determine whether the Bearcats earn a spot in the upcoming GLVC Women's Lacrosse Championship Tournament, which will be held on May 1st (semifinals) and May 3rd (championship) at the highest seed's venue. 

Two of the four spots have already been clinched (UIndy and Maryville), as the other two will be decided this week. 

All games in the tournament will be streamed live and on-demand on the GLVC Sports Network with a subscription/download purchase required. Live stats will also be made available to the public. Tickets can be purchased over at glvcsports.com when made available. 

TUNE IN-FO 

DATE	TIME (CT)	HOME TEAM	AWAY TEAM	LIVE STATS	WATCH LIVE
4/24/26	4:00 PM	Rockhurst	McKendree	STATS	WATCH ($)
4/26/26	11:00 AM	William Jewell	McKendree	STATS	WATCH ($)

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