With one solid win, the Colorado women’s lacrosse team ended its road struggles while getting acquainted with its new conference on a winning note.

The Buffaloes opened Big 12 Conference play by defeating San Diego State 16-12 on Saturday afternoon at Aztec Field.

The victory ended an 0-4 start for the Buffs away from home, while CU also improved to 11-0 all-time against the Aztecs. The Buffs (5-5, 1-0 Big 12) posted a season-high scoring total and equaled the number of goals they scored in the previous two games combined.

San Diego State scored the game’s first two goals, but CU dominated the remainder of the first half, scoring 12 of the next 14 goals before taking a 12-5 lead at halftime. The Aztecs rallied to within 13-7 early in the third quarter, but three straight CU goals gave the Buffs a 16-7 lead early in the fourth.

The Aztecs ended the game on a 5-0 run, but it wasn’t nearly enough to prevent CU from coming home with the road win.

Madeline Pisani led a big day for CU’s offense, matching her career-highs with seven goals and nine points. With her sixth goal, Pisani became the seventh Buffs player to reach 100 goals in their career, and she jumped from ninth to seventh among the program’s all-time goals leaders.

It was the 18th hat trick of Pisani’s career.

Lily Assini finished with four goals and one assist for the Buffs, while freshman goalie Elena Oh recorded seven saves. Colorado finished with a 31-26 advantage in shots with a 29-19 edge in shots on goal.

“Glad to get the win today — every win in conference is huge,” CU head coach Ann Elliott Whidden said in a release. “This is a new season for us, and we’ve come out and started strong. There’s a lot for us to build off of and learn from. We have to know every team we play in conference is going to compete for 60 minutes, and we have to find a better way to compete ourselves for 60 minutes. We were undisciplined today in many aspects, and it caught up to us — we have to do better and demand better of ourselves. I’m proud of us for finishing the game out, but we will take a look at the whole game and see what positives we can take from it and what areas we need to learn from.”

CU will be idle for eight days before completing a run of three consecutive games away from home on April 6 at Arizona State (1 p.m., ESPN+).