The Hofstra Pride women’s lacrosse team faced another setback against No. 19 Johns Hopkins University on Saturday, falling to the Blue Jays 12-4. The loss was Hofstra’s second in a row against a ranked opponent.
Unlike the Pride’s previous loss – an 18-7 game against top-ranked University of Maryland – the team never led against Johns Hopkins. Hofstra was slow out of the gates on offense as struggles at the draw circle hampered the Pride from getting many offensive possessions.
“We played probably 90 percent of the game on defense, and to hold an offense that Johns Hopkins has to 12 goals I thought was really impressive,” said Hofstra head coach Shannon Smith.
Johns Hopkins took the first five draw controls of the match. By the time Hofstra came away with one, the Pride was already facing a 6-1 deficit late in the first half. With the way the Blue Jays’ defense was playing, a five-goal lead felt more like a ten-goal difference.
“Honestly, we didn’t challenge Johns Hopkins’ defense at all. They’re a very good defense but we didn’t dodge hard to create a double team, to swing the ball back,” Smith said. “We were just trying to dodge on our first possession. A lot of shots didn’t come off because we also turned the ball over a lot on the offensive side of the field.”
The Pride committed 11 turnovers in the first half. Most the turnovers were due to poor communication between Pride players on passes.
“We were throwing the ball away a lot on offense,” Smith said. “We were being very uncharacteristic to ourselves in our game compared to what we saw all week in practice. That’s a little disappointing for us. We’re going to go back and we’re going to have to re-evaluate.”
Hofstra often tried forcing looks inside or failed to find the open player when the ball-handler was double-teamed inside the 8-meter line. Though it was not the outing the team expected, there were a lot of positives to take away from the game. Alyssa Parrella got back on the board with a pair of scores after coming away empty against Maryland. She leads the team with 17 goals.
Alexa Mattera continued to be active on the offensive end distributing the ball, although she wasn’t able to register any offensive stats.
Additionally, the defense held Hopkins to 12 goals – which is under the Blue Jays’ average for the season.
The Pride falls to 2-3 on the season with the loss. However, Hofstra’s competition gets a little bit softer in its next game. The Pride will square off against Quinnipiac University on Saturday where Hofstra will try to get back in the win column. Quinnipiac comes into Shuart Stadium riding a four-game losing streak, and boasting just a 1-4 record overall.
“I think that first we’ve got to look at this game film and self-evaluate ourselves, see where we stand with all of our players and where each of them can get better,” Smith said. “I think we just need to improve on the draw controls big time.”
