Attacker Brooke Griffin pushes the ball upfield in the Terps’ 17-5 win against Rutgers at the Field Hockey and Lacrosse Complex on April 4, 2015.
Throughout much of the Terrapins women’s lacrosse team’s game against Johns Hopkins on Wednesday night, attacker Brooke Griffin played away from her usual spot along the frontline.
Griffin still patrolled the area at times, but the Blue Jays’ defensive scheme forced the senior to frequently venture away from her typical facilitating position behind the net.
Instead, Griffin weaved throughout the circle on multiple occasions and scored a game-high five goals while attacker Kristen Lamon and other Terps filled Griffin’s typical role.
Despite the No. 18 Blue Jays’ attempts to deter the No. 1 Terps, coach Cathy Reese’s squad adjusted and prevailed, 17-9, in Baltimore to extend its season-long winning streak to 15 games.
The Terps hope they’ll be ready to make similar adjustments when they face a young Michigan team at the Field Hockey and Lacrosse Complex on Saturday afternoon.
“Hopkins threw a bunch of different defensive looks at us,” Reese said. “Our girls reacted nicely and took care of the ball better than we have been in the past couple of games, so that’s what we were shooting for [Wednesday].”
Griffin and her teammates successfully realigned their setup against the Blue Jays’ defensive switches and expect to face similar circumstances against the Wolverines (5-9, 0-3 Big Ten).
Michigan’s team, in its second year as a Division I program, is made up of entirely freshmen and sophomores. The Wolverines have lost six consecutive games and will be the second-last team with the chance to spoil the Terps’ (15-0, 3-0) perfect regular season.
“It’s just how the teams are defending you,” Griffin said. “It’s just harder to get back there. They can shut you off easily, so you just keep moving up top and keep that flow going.”
Griffin wasn’t the only Terp to receive extra attention from the Blue Jays. Johns Hopkins often face-guarded midfielder Taylor Cummings, who finished with six points on four goals and two assists.
It wasn’t the first time this season the reigning Tewaaraton Award winner has drawn multiple defenders, though. As she normally does, the junior relegated herself to standing away from the action until the Blue Jays switched their scheme.
She said that allowed her teammates more room to operate their plays and decreased the number of defenders they had to beat.
“If they’re going to shut me off and not slide, I might as well not clog it up,” Cummings said. “[Reese will] set me as a pick sometimes too and have people run off me, but [Johns Hopkins] stopped face-guarding me pretty quick, so it didn’t really get to that.”
Though the Terps overcame the challenges on the offensive end, Reese said her team could have been sharper on defense.
Goalkeeper Alex Fitzpatrick stopped four shots, but she surrendered nine Johns Hopkins goals and appeared vulnerable when the Blue Jays found open looks near the outer parts of the circle.
“We’re going to have those games sometimes, and this just happened to be one of them,” Reese said. “They were sticking their shots, and they shot from far out. I don’t even think we were expecting them to, so some of them were unfortunate, some of them were great shots, and hopefully we’ll rebound and be ready on Saturday.”
With their undefeated mark still intact with two contests remaining, the Terps expect Michigan to try to disrupt their original game plan. But just like Wednesday, the Terps are keeping their focus on self-improvement.
“We just focus on ourselves,” Griffin said. “No matter what game we go into, we do have that target on our back, and we’re so focused on ourselves, one minute at a time, and just keep going.”
