No. 14 Penn State women’s lacrosse (3-6) fell to Johns Hopkins (3-4) 13-10 in Baltimore Wednesday afternoon. The Nittany Lions put up a fight in the second half, but it wasn’t enough to overcome a red-hot start for the Blue Jays.

Maria Auth had a hat trick to close out the contest, but that was one of the only bright spots in Penn State’s third straight loss.

How It Happened

Olivia Dirks started off the game with the draw after Penn State had a tough performance there against Ohio State.

Dirks scored the first goal of the game, putting the Nittany Lions on the board early in the first half leading the Blue Jays 1-0 with 28:23 left to go.

Johns Hopkins’ Aurora Cordingley to tie the game up 1-1. The tie lasted less than 20 seconds as Gretchen Gilmore scored for Nittany Lions on a shooting space violation free position shot. Penn State led 2-1 with 25 minutes left in the first half.

Cordingley scored her second goal for the Blue Jays, taking their first lead of the game, leading the Nittany Lions 3-2. The Nittany Lions were having trouble shooting on offense and turned the ball over multiple times to lead to goals by the Blue Jays.

Quinn Nicolai bounced back, however, as scored her second goal of the season for Penn State to tie up the game 3-3 on a top of the net eight meter shot.

Four-time Big Ten Freshman of the Week winner, Kristin O’Neill, scored her 20th goal of the season for the Nittany Lions to tie up the game 4-4 with 6:49 left in the first half.

The Blue Jays went on a three-goal run in less than 2:19 minutes at the end of the first, leading the Nittany Lions 7-4 going into the second half. The Nittany Lions went scoreless for the last six minutes of the first half.

Cordingley scored her fourth of the game to open the second half after Penn State made a turnover in the midfield off the draw. The Blue Jays led 8-4 with 29:03 left to go in the game, and the Nittany Lions had gone over eight minutes without a shot on goal.

Penn State finally scored after being scoreless for 14 minutes thanks to Sophia Triandafils. The Nittany Lions trailed 9-5 with plenty of time left in the second half to turn the game around.

Dirks scored her second goal of the game after a strong cut through the eight-meter for her 19th goal of the season. The Nittany Lions trailed the Blue Jays 11-7 with just over 10 minutes left in the game. The Blue Jays scored less than 30 seconds later, however, taking the lead 12-7.

Maria Auth then scored after being knocked to the ground. She was able to keep the ball in her stick and get back up as she switched from her right to left hand, and hit the net making the score 13-8 with less than five minutes left in the half. She then scored again a minute later, and the Nittany Lions now trailed 13-9 with 3:23 left in the game.

The Nittany Lions lost to the Blue Jays 13-10 after a valiant effort to take the lead at the end of the second half.

Takeaways

• Penn State couldn’t seem to get the ball on the net throughout much of Wednesday’s contest. Several missed opportunities clearly hurt the Nittany Lions’ momentum down the stretch.
• The Nittany Lions couldn’t stop Aurora Cordingley. She scored over six goals, a career-high for the senior, and largely paced Johns Hopkins’ offense.
• There were 13 turnovers for the Nittany Lions on offense and in the midfield, which gave the Blue Jays multiple opportunities to take the lead halfway through the first and through the end of the game.
• In their last three games, the Nittany Lions seem to wake up in the last eight minutes. However, Missy Doherty’s group needs to pick things up through the middle of their contests in order to hang with top conference opponents.

What’s Next?

The Nittany Lions next face No. 9 Maryland at 1 p.m. on Sunday, April 11 at Panzer Stadium. The Nittany Lions are also celebrating their Senior Day this Sunday.