The Hopkins women's lacrosse team suffered two tough losses in its last two games, falling 10-7 at home to Stanford last Friday and 16-7 at Towson on Sunday.
Against Stanford, sophomore Julianne Wisner made a career-high 15 saves at goalie, but the 14th-ranked Cardinals were too much for the Blue Jays, holding them off for the 10-7 victory. The loss broke a two-game winning streak for Hopkins, who fell to 4-5 after the loss, while Stanford improved to 8-2. Barely three minutes into the game, Stanford's Sarah Flynn put her team on the board, scoring the first of what would be three goals for her in the game. Hopkins junior Brett Bathras tied the score at 1-1 with a goal of her own. However, Julie Christy sparked a four-goal Cardinal streak, scoring with 22:06 to play in the half. Leslie Foard, Lauren Schmidt and Dana Lindsay each scored goals after Christy's, putting the Cardinals up 5-1.
Junior Paige Ibello snapped Stanford's run with a free position goal, cutting the Cardinal's lead to three. Stanford's Flynn would score again, but this time Hopkins had an answer. Freshman Colleen McCaffrey and Bathras each scored goals, and Stanford went into the locker room at halftime with a 7-4 lead.
Coming out of the half, neither team was able to score for 10 minutes, but Stanford scored back-to-back goals in just under two minutes, pushing its lead to 9-4; the Jays wouldn't score until more than 20 minutes into the half. With 9:15 left in the game, Ibello scored again for Hopkins. Freshman Candace Rossi scored with 6:28 remaining, cutting Stanford's lead to 9-6. Schmidt then scored again for the Cardinals. But only 24 seconds later, Hopkins's Gina Maranto answered with a goal of her own. After that, however, Stanford was able to run out the clock for the win.
At Towson on Sunday, the Tigers used runs of 4-0 and 7-0 to control the early tempo of the game, and the Jays weren't able to recover, dropping to 4-6 on the season with the loss. The Tigers, who snapped an eight-game losing streak to Hopkins, improved to 6-3 on the season.
With the game tied at 1-1 early, Hopkins got back-to-back goals from sophomore Brianna Cronin and freshman Candace Rossi, and took a 3-1 lead with 12:37 left to play in the first half. However, Towson ended the half on a 4-0 run, heading into the locker room with a 7-3 lead at halftime.
Only 19 seconds into the second half, Marcinik scored again, extending the Tigers' lead to five. Colleen McCaffrey scored on a free position goal, ending Hopkins's scoreless streak that lasted over 15 minutes. Towson would respond emphatically. Kendall scored back-to-back goals in just 38 seconds for the Tigers, followed by goals from Cassie Krause and McNamara. Cronin was able to cut Towson's lead to 12-5, scoring her second goal of the game on an assist from junior Kim Dubansky. The lead was pushed back to eight on a goal from Katie Cloud. McCaffrey responded for the Jays, scoring her second goal of the game, but McNamara scored her third goal of the day shortly thereafter. Jackie LaMonica then extended Towson's lead to nine with 4:13 left in the game.
Candance Rossi then scored her second goal of the game, giving her 22 on the season to lead the team. Towson would score the game's last two goals for the 16-7 victory.
The Jays will take on second-ranked Penn on Wednesday at Homewood Field. In order to avoid missing the playoffs for the second consecutive year, the Jays need to play well.
