Wednesday afternoon, the Bees had their first conference game of the season on their home field taking on the William Woods Owls. St. Ambrose protected home turf, taking down the Owls 13-9, making the Bees 1-0 in conference. 

Game time started at 1 p.m., and the Bees came ready to play.

Ayden Fraelle scored the opening goal to put the Bees in the lead. SAU scored again shortly after with a goal coming from Cameron Washington. William Woods stopped the Bees momentum with their first goal giving St. Ambrose a 2-1 lead.

SAU notched another goal shortly after, with this one coming from Zakary Brown, assisted by Washington. Midway through the first quarter, the game took a 45-minute weather delay stopping the Bees' momentum.

SAU came out of the break hot with a three-goal run, goals coming from Eli Hahn (assisted by Lachlan Hodge), Fraelle (assisted by Washington), and Hodge. With St. Ambrose up 6-1, the Owls scored with 16 seconds left in the quarter bringing the first period to an end. 

The Owls picked up where they left off and put two in the back of the cage, which made the score 6-4. With five minutes left in the half, Ryan Swanson scored, stopping the Owls' run. William Woods answered back with a goal of their own. With a man-up attempt for the Bees, Hodge scored on a pass coming from Swanson putting the Bees up 8-5 going into halftime.

Coming out of half, the Owls struck first to bring the score to 8-6. The Bees answered back with Fraelle putting two in the back of the net. William Woods would not go away and scored two of their own bringing the score to 10-8. To end the quarter, Fraelle scored his third goal of the quarter, assisted by EJ Loggins, to put the Bees up 11-8 going into the final quarter.

With a slow fourth quarter, Swanson scored with 3:30 left in the game to increase the Bees' lead. The Owls scored a goal looking for a late comeback, but Swanson answered back with another goal bringing the final score to 13-9 for the Bees.

In this competitive conference matchup, the Bees took the win with impressive performances from multiple players. Fraelle led the team in goals with five followed by Swanson with three. More goals came from Hodge with two, and Hahn, Brown, and Washington all notching one in. Washington was the main distributor for the day with two assists while Hodge, Loggins, and Swanson each had one. Alex Wirth was in the cage for this matchup making five saves on 14 shots on goal. Limiting the opponents opportunities, Joe Campbell caused six turnovers while adding seven ground balls. Another impressive defensive day came from Hahn with five caused turnovers and nine ground balls. 

St. Ambrose looks to keep rolling with another home conference matchup this Saturday against Columbia College.