WISE - - Top-seeded UVa-Wise used a strong defensive effort and a trio of hat tricks to down No. 4 seed University of Charleston 18-10 in the semifinals of the 2018 Mountain East Conference Women's Lacrosse Tournament held at Smith Stadium. McKayla Grasham led the charge with five goals while Hannah Marshall netted four goals and Jesse French scored three times to aid the program to its first postseason victory.

UVa-Wise (13-4) started fast scoring 16 seconds into the game as Sydney Steinberg handed out of the first of her two assists on the day as Grasham scored the opening goal.

Charleston (8-9) quickly countered with an unassisted goal from Brianna Rock at the 27:52 mark.

From there, the rest of the first half belonged to Dennehy's squad as the Cavaliers scored five consecutive goals and six of the final nine goals of the half to take a 7-4 lead to intermission.

Marshall netted an unassisted goal to begin scoring in the second half to make it an 8-4 contest only to see Samantha Youngman cut the lead to three at the 27:29 mark.

After UVa-Wise's Rachel Cole and Charleston's Esther Yi traded goals, French scored two of her goals as part of a 4-0 scoring spurt for the regular season champions that put the game out of reach.

Trailing 13-6, the Golden Eagles battled to the end but they would get no closer than six goals as the team was making its first postseason appearance in its third year of existence.

Marshall led the way with six points for UVa-Wise while goalie Melanie Reilly posted eight saves and four groundballs to lead the defense.

With three points on the day, French eclipsed 100 for her career in just her second collegiate season.

UVa-Wise will advance to Sunday's championship game at 1 p.m. where they will face Shepherd University.