Maryland women’s lacrosse rallies late to avoid upset against Johns Hopkins

With less than nine minutes remaining in the first half of the Terrapins women’s lacrosse team’s game against Johns Hopkins, the Blue Jays missed a shot, and the ball caromed off the fence toward the Terps’ bench.

Defender Nadine Hadnagy and a pair of Blue Jays attackers chased after it.

While they ran, it appeared Hadnagy would be closest to the ball as it went out of bounds to flip possession to the Terps. But a Johns Hopkins player beat her to it, allowing the Blue Jays a second chance on their offensive end.

In the Terps’ 10-8 victory over the Blue Jays (8-6) at the Field Hockey and Lacrosse Complex on Wednesday, several of coach Cathy Reese’s players found themselves in similar situations as the team trailed for more than 21 consecutive minutes.

“Hopkins was scoring when they had opportunities to, and we weren’t,” Reese said. “It’s huge for this group to be able to fight back.”

Reese’s squad found itself down early and was unable to regroup before the intermission. For the first time this season, the Terps trailed at the end of the half after allowing six goals in the first 30 minutes.

So in an effort to prevent their first home loss since March 2012, the Terps’ offense adjusted in the latter period.

Midfielder Zoe Stukenberg scored consecutive goals with about 20 minutes remaining, and midfielder Jen Giles added one to tie the game at seven goals midway through the half.

Then with about 11 minutes left in the second period, midfielder Taylor Hensh gave the Terps their first lead of the night, which they wouldn’t relinquish.

“It’s easy, if you think about the final score, to get wrapped up in [trailing],” Stukenberg said. “It was really important for us to take a step back and realize we really can’t look past the little things.”

As was the case against Cornell, the Terps failed to get on the board first. Attacker Megan Whittle’s pair of goals helped the Terps even the score twice in the first half, but the Blue Jays stormed back. They entered halftime on a 3-0 run.

“In the first half, we struggled a little,” Hadnagy said. “In the second half, we said on defense we needed to make a stop.”

With the offense rallying for the lead, the Terps’ backline capitalized on that mindset as the clock wound down, forcing turnovers on the Blue Jays’ final three possessions.

Still, the Terps’ eighth-ranked defense struggled throughout the contest. The unit had trouble containing Blue Jays midfielder Dene’ DiMartino, who scored five times, the most production the Terps have surrendered to a single player this season.

And after the Terps turned the ball over a season-high 17 times in Saturday’s win over Cornell, they committed seven first-half turnovers Wednesday and failed to connect on eight of their 11 first-half shots.

“We were almost a little frantic,” Reese said. “We have a team that has had such a powerful offense that when things weren’t falling right away, this was something we needed to learn.”

But then the group started to click, and midfielder Taylor Cummings scored for the first time with about three minutes left to add an insurance point.

Despite trailing for most of the night, the Terps avoided their first loss since falling to Ohio State in the Big Ten Championship game last May. The adversity served as a learning experience for the squad.

“We are young, and we wanted to see how we would react to that,” Hadnagy said. “Everybody stepped up, and we really stepped up the intensity in the second half.”