Loyola Maryland uses fourth-quarter run to turn back Johns Hopkins
The Loyola Maryland women’s lacrosse team’s recent run of dominance against Johns Hopkins remains intact.
In a nip-and-tuck affair between a pair of unbeatens in a series dubbed the Charles Street rivalry because of the schools’ close proximity along the Baltimore artery, the Greyhounds broke a tie at 10 after three quarters with three unanswered goals and held off the host Blue Jays to surface with a 17-14 win Wednesday evening at Homewood Field.
“This is always such a battle,” Loyola coach Jen Adams said. “You can always expect that when we come to Hopkins or they come down the street to us, the two teams just compete and play the game so hard and tough. There were a lot of fouls in the game today, and I think we were able to capitalize on that a little bit. But at the same time, anytime you get a win over Hopkins, it’s a good sign. I will certainly sleep well tonight.”
Junior midfielder Chase Boyle scored a game-high six goals, and junior attacker Georgia Latch contributed five points on four goals and one assist to power the Greyhounds. Loyola, which is ranked No. 9 in the most recent Intercollegiate Women’s Lacrosse Coaches Association poll, improved to 3-0 for the third consecutive year and collected its fourth straight victory over Johns Hopkins and its sixth in the past nine meetings.
Junior attacker Ashley Mackin paced the No. 12 Blue Jays (3-1) with four points on three goals and one assist, and sophomore attacker Ava Angello scored three times. But Johns Hopkins — which had defeated No. 21 Albany, 14-10, on Feb. 9 and No. 25 Duke, 17-13, on Saturday — was denied its best start since 2014 when that squad opened the season with 10 straight victories.
“Hopkins is such a good team, especially this year,” Boyle said. “They came out and have been playing so well. So being able to play a team this good in our third game of the season is really huge for us. It will totally set us up as we
keep going.”
The Greyhounds defeated their second ranked opponent of the season. They began the year with an 18-10 rout of then-No. 10 Florida on Feb. 10.
The game featured runs by both sides. Johns Hopkins opened the first quarter by sprinting to a 3-1 lead in the first 10 minutes, Loyola countered with a 5-1 burst over an 11-minute stretch to assume a 6-4 lead midway through the second quarter, and the Blue Jays used a 4-1 spurt in the final six minutes to carry an 8-7 lead into halftime.
Both teams exchanged goals throughout the third quarter until
the score was tied at 10. That’s when the Greyhounds scored three goals in a 1:39 span, including back-to-back tallies from Latch in a 49-second stretch.
After that, Johns Hopkins tried to dig out of the hole, but Loyola matched each goal with one of its own. Senior attacker Sydni Black scored two of her three goals in a 40-second span of the final period.
“I think it was a sense of realizing that it had pretty much been back-and-forth all game and tied, and the fourth quarter is when you’ve really got to burn it because much of the game is won in the fourth quarter,” said Boyle, who also controlled a game-high 10 draws. “So coming and knowing that our offense had to score a bunch of goals was really helpful. And our defense being able to make some really huge stops was also helpful.”
When Mackin scored her second goal of the game with 8:22 left in the fourth quarter, she ended a 9:13 drought for the Blue Jays. Adams said the Greyhounds tweaked their defense in that frame so that junior goalkeeper Lauren Spence could finish with eight saves.
“I think we were giving them too much space,” she said. “Defensively, we talked about stepping up and getting on their hands a little bit more, and I think we did contest those shots a lot better. Spence was then able to see them with a little bit of time and room. They’re such a high-powered shooting team, and they go from so many areas, and there’s so much chaos. We had to kind of slow the ball down for our goalkeeper, and our defense was able to do that.”
Loyola also capitalized on a significant disparity in fouls and penalties. The team was awarded nine free-position opportunities, converting six, and scored seven extra-player goals.
Meanwhile, Johns Hopkins had only three free-position chances (making two), was assessed 17 minutes worth of cards compared with just two minutes for the Greyhounds, and lost junior defender Paris Colgain (St. Paul’s) midway through the third quarter after she picked up her second yellow card of the game, which results in an immediate disqualification. Even coach Tim McCormack was flagged a yellow card for standing in the field of play and nearly making contact with an official.
But he refused to criticize the calls and noted that the Blue Jays and graduate student goalie Madison Doucette (a game-best 10 saves) played too much defense in the fourth quarter.
“I don’t know how often we had the ball,” he said. “It felt like we played a lot of D down the stretch. The possessions we had, we had some pretty good shots. Their kid made some pretty good saves in the end.”