Women’s Lax off to a scintillating start

The 16th-ranked Hopkins women’s lacrosse team picked up a pair of dominating wins last week, both at home against the American University Eagles on Wednesday and the Rutgers Scarlet Knights on Sunday.

The wins put the Lady Jays at 3-0 to start the young season.

The Lady Jays came out strong out of the gate against the Eagles, scoring the game’s first six goals. Sophomore attack Shannon Fitzgerald opened up the floodgates for the Lady Jays, putting them up 1-0 just 38 seconds into the game.

Then, at the 25:53 mark, junior midfielder Haley Schweizer added another tally, which was followed up by an unassisted strike from senior attack Dene DiMartino just 93 seconds later.

At the 20:58 mark, senior attack Jenna Reifler capitalized on a free-position shot, her first goal of the season, to put the team up 4-0.

Sophomore attack Emily Kenul then put the Lady Jays up 6-0, following two back-to-back goals, the first coming off an intercepted pass and the second off a pass from freshman attack Miranda Ibello at the 12:44 mark.

The Eagles went on to grab the next two goals to pull within four, but the Lady Jays came right back with three consecutive goals. The first came from senior midfielder Caroline Turco, who capitalized on a pass from Reifler to score from short range.

The second was courtesy of DiMartino and the third from Fitzgerald with an assist from junior attack Alexis Maffucci at the 5:41 mark.

The two teams traded goals twice to end the period, with DiMartino and Reifler scoring for the Lady Jays. Reifler’s goal came in with just 1.9 seconds left in the half, giving Hopkins an 11-4 lead.

While the Eagles opened the second half with a score, the Lady Jays answered again with three goals of their own coming from DiMartino, Kenul and sophomore attack CeCe Finney, making their lead 14-5 at the 17:46 mark.

The Eagles would not go down with a fight, scoring five of the next six goals, with the Lady Jays’ strike coming courtesy of DiMartino.

Sophomore attack Chloe Duke closed out the scoring for Hopkins and cemented the 16-10 victory with her first goal of the season, a high-to-low strike with just 1:43 left to play.

In the season opener against Marquette University, several players mentioned the need to practice shooting leading up to the games this week and the increased focus appeared to pay off.

“We definitely worked on shooting a lot in the days following Marquette,” Schweizer said. “Aside from more reps, we watched film to see exactly how and why we were missing. I think we definitely sighted the cage better against American but there is still much room for improvement as the season progresses. We have great shooters who need to be utilized.”

There was no doubt the Jays have seen significant improvement already in this young season.

“In our game against American, we had a much higher shooting percentage than we did in the Marquette game,” Ibello said. “We incorporated more fakes and hitches when shooting, which gave us more successful shots.”

Players cited high energy and strong ball movement as the core reasons behind their 6-0 run to start the first half.

“Ball movement was key, and we were playing really good, solid team defense as well, which always helps offense get the ball rolling,” DiMartino said. “We were finding open players and we were patient with the ball, which allowed us to get the defense moving and eventually put the ball in the back of the net.”

Despite the overall strong performance, several players mentioned that the team got a little too comfortable with their first half lead.

“I think they were able to do this because we came back in to the second half a little bit on our heels,” junior defender Maddie Bodden said.

“American made a come back because we got too comfortable with the lead,” Schweizer said. “We thought we had a nice cushion with the few goal lead from the first half. We also started substituting more rapidly and having different chemistries on the field.”

Both Ibello and DiMartino also mentioned carelessness on the offensive end as a cause of American’s surge midway through the second half. Still, the Lady Jays were able to recoup after the run.

“After American’s run, we collected ourselves and took a deep breath,” Bodden said. “We talked about not letting any more goals in, and we did just that and won the draw.”

The Lady Jays followed up their win against the Eagles with a dominating 14-2 victory against the Rutgers Scarlet Knights on the road this past Sunday. Schweizer, who turned in a career-best six-goal performance while also adding an assist, led the team in their convincing 12-goal victory.

The Lady Jays shined towards the end of both halves, going on a five-goal run to end the first half and a six-goal run to conclude the second. Other multi-goal scorers were Kenul, Fitzgerald and Finney, all sophomores who scored two each.

At two apiece, DiMartino and Ibello led the team in assists for the game, with DiMartino also making a goal of her own.

Senior Reifler also turned in a multi-point game with a goal and an assist. Defensively, the team held the Scarlett Knights to just 14 shots compared to 34 for Hopkins and received a strong performance in goal from junior Caroline Federico, who made six saves and allowed just two goals.