Women’s Lacrosse jumps out to 3-0 start

The Hopkins women’s lacrosse team has been tough to stop in February. Through the first two games of the month, the Jays have averaged a whopping 16.5 goals per game en route to a 2-0 record. This past Saturday, the Jays returned to Homewood Field after defeating Mount Saint Mary’s University 17-2 in Emmitsburg, Md. last Wednesday to play a winless Bucknell team in the hopes of starting the young season with an impressive 3-0 record. This game started a critical four-game home stand for a Hopkins team that hopes to make it back to the NCAA Division I Tournament for the first time since 2007.

The Jays dominated the Bucknell Bison by a score of 19-7 to start their home stand off on the right foot. A trio of Jays led the offensive explosion, which saw senior Taylor D’Amore and sophomores Dene DiMartino and Jenna Reifler score four goals apiece. The Jays used multiple scoring runs to pull away from the Bison in a game where the Jays led for nearly 54 minutes.

Early in the game, Bucknell took a 1-0 lead when senior Katelyn Miller scored from the eight-meter mark just 3:34 into the game. This early success from the Bison did not continue, however, as the Jays went on a 12-0 scoring run which spanned nearly 24 minutes in the first half.

Igniting the run was DiMartino, who pumped in back-to-back goals 65 seconds apart (24:57, 23:52). D’Amore next added consecutive goals a mere 30 seconds apart (22:54, 21:54) to run the Jays’ lead up to 4-1. Almost seven minutes later, junior Jen Cook was able to quick-stick a pass from D’Amore to push the Hopkins lead to 5-1 midway through the first half.

Reifler, who had her first career four-goal game, scored her first goal off a hard dodge from the right alley with 14:14 left in the first half. Less than two minutes later, she received a dump pass from senior Sammy Cermack and was able to bury it to extend the Jays’ lead to 7-1.

D’Amore and DiMartino completed their hat tricks in the first half off of back-to-back free position goals. DiMartino scored her third with 11:45 left and D’Amore struck for her third time just 1:25 later to push the lead to 9-1. This goal was D’Amore’s 100th career goal at Hopkins. With that goal, she becomes the eighth player in the University’s Division I history to score 100 goals in a career as a Jay.

D’Amore stayed active offensively when she assisted sophomore Erica Matz’s goal with just under 10 minutes to go in the half. Scarcely a minute later, DiMartino tied her career-best number of goals in a game with her fourth and final goal on a free position (8:46). With only 29 seconds left, D’Amore put the final stamp on her incredible first half with her fourth goal of the game. She dodged from the top of the fan and picked the upper right corner to increase the Jays’ lead to 12-1.

The Bison were able to slip in a late goal to make the score at the half 12-2.

The Jays did not miss a beat offensively to start the second half. They continued to put pressure on the Bison by scoring three goals in the first 10 minutes of the second half. Cermack pumped in her fifth goal of the year off of a D’Amore assist. Matz pushed the Hopkins lead to 14-2 with her second goal of the game. With almost 21 minutes left in the game, Reifler ripped a shot from the five-meter off of a Cermack assist for her third goal of the game.

With a commanding 15-2 lead, the Jays seemed to tone down the offensive pressure and, over the final 20 minutes of the game, were outscored by the Bison 5-4. Bucknell scored three straight goals to cut the Jay lead to 10 with almost 13 minutes left in the game. Hopkins’s 16th goal came off the unassisted stick of junior Jen Cook. Cermack scored her second of the game to extend the lead to 17-6. Reifler and freshman Alexis Maffucci scored the final two goals for Hopkins, and the game’s final tally was 19-7 in favor of the Jays.

The Jays will be back in action Saturday afternoon. They will be hosting American University on Homewood Field at 1:00 p.m.