Despite a number of goals from the freshman class, the women’s lacrosse team fell behind early against No. 17 Loyola Maryland University en route to a 17-4 road defeat.
Following a 21-2 blowout loss to Army, The Leopards (1-4 Patriot League, 5-7 overall) ceded six unanswered goals to the Greyhounds (6-0 Patriot League, 9-5 overall) in the opening frame of Saturday’s contest.
“I think people get a little nervous in the beginning of the game just adjusting to the speed,” freshman midfielder Isabelle Pohmer said. “We’ve really worked on staying competitive in practice and live situations so that we won’t start back.”
Loyola added three goals in the second quarter to make it a 9-0 affair entering halftime. The Greyhounds outshot the Maroon and White 27-7 in the first half.
“We know they’re always going to be a big challenge for us,” senior attacker Sara Rogers said. “I think going into the rest of the season, we have a bunch of winnable games, so playing such high competition gets us more prepared for that.”
Facing a 9-0 deficit, the Leopards limited Loyola to just one shot attempt in the opening few minutes of the third quarter before Rogers found senior attacker Haleigh Albrecht on the right side of the 8-meter arc, and Albrecht zipped a shot to the back of the net.
“We saw a lot of our success more with cutting and feeding rather than our typical game plan, which is the one one-on-one drives,” Rogers said. “I think that will definitely be in our arsenal a lot more for the rest of the games now that we know that those opportunities will be there.”
Unfortunately for the Maroon and White, the Greyhounds immediately responded, notching a goal less than a minute after Albrecht’s and tallying four more to make it a 14-1 contest into the final frame.
Opening the fourth quarter, freshman midfielder Evelyn Guyer scored her second career goal off an assist from freshman Annie Madden.
Guyer said that “vocalizing myself when I was open” was key to finding the back of the net.
“We’re all on the same level about trusting each other with the ball,” Guyer said. “Just knowing that if you see a stick, hit the stick, and trusting that they’re going to catch it and trusting you’re going to throw a good feed.”
Minutes later, Pohmer created another scoring opportunity for the first years.
“I drove in, and then they fouled me, so I got put on the 8-meter,” said Pohmer, who scored on a free-position goal. “I was pretty confident going up to the line.”
To close out the game, Guyer added another goal, good for the third of her collegiate career, but Loyola added a last-minute score to close out the game 17-4.
The Maroon and White continue Patriot League play with a pair of home games this week, taking on Colgate University (2-3 Patriot League, 6-6 overall) on Saturday and Bucknell University (1-4 Patriot League, 5-7 overall) on Wednesday night.
“I think our main goal stays being making the Patriot League tournament, which is still a possibility for sure with four games left,” Rogers said. “We always want to have a good shot percentage, finish our shots, take advantage of those opportunities. After scoring only four goals against Loyola, we definitely want to make sure that our shooting is more on point.”
