The No. 19 Hopkins Lady Jays extended their win streak by two games over the past two weekends with victories against Furman University and Georgetown University. The wins put the women’s lax team at 6-2 to start the season.
The Lady Jays dominated in the game against Furman as they jumped to an early 6-0 lead en route to a dominating 17-3 victory on the road. Junior midfielder Kristen Cannon got the goal scoring started with a free position goal at the 5:38 marker and just three minutes later sophomore forward Haley Schweizer took advantage of a pass from junior forward Jenna Reifler to give the Lady Jays the 2-0 lead.
Junior forward Jen Cook would then beat a double team with a pass to sophomore forward Alexis Mafucci who then scored the team’s third goal of the game.
Cook then assisted Schweizer at the 19:53 mark to give the Lady Jays the 4-0 lead. Junior midfielder Dene DiMartino and Mafucci both scored before Furman fought back with two goals of their own making the score 6-2 with 8:08 left to play in the half.
The Lady Jays would not let the goals go unanswered as they went on a four-goal surge courtesy of DiMartino, Cannon and two from freshman forward CeCe Finney.
Mafucci opened the floodgates in the second half with a goal to complete her hat trick on the day. These were followed by goals from Cook and freshman midfielder Emily Kenul as well as the first career goal from senior Defender Octavia Williams. Finney capped off the five-goal run with another goal to complete her first career hat trick, giving Hopkins a commanding 15-2 lead. While Furman would get one back, the Lady Jays capped off the game with goals from freshmen midfielders Eden Epner and Shannon Fitzgerald. Epner’s was the first of her career.
“Usually if you can get up on a team early and quickly then it really sets the tone and pace for the game,” Schweizer said.
“We were able to play fast and execute our game plan,” senior goalie K.C. Emerson said. “Our energy was really high, which I think kept our confidence up and made it harder for Furman to try to mount a comeback.”
One week later, the Lady Jays earned a hard fought 8-6 win at home against their Beltway rival, Georgetown. Hopkins jumped to an early 3-0 lead with goals from Fitzgerald, Finney and DiMartino.
While the Hoyas would get one back before the end of the half, the Lady Jays quickly answered eight seconds later as Finney capitalized on a fastbreak opportunity created by Cook. This gave Hopkins a 4-1 lead going into the half.
Cannon opened up the second half with a goal just 46 seconds in, and Kenul would add another just 36 seconds later. Fitzgerald also scored shortly thereafter, giving Hopkins a 7-1 lead at the 23:51 mark. The Hoyas, however, would not go down without a fight and scored four straight goals to cut the lead to two.
However, just 20 seconds after Georgetown’s 4th goal, Fitzgerald stopped the Hoyas’ run with her third goal of the game and her second career hat trick. The goal gave Hopkins an 8-5 lead with just seven minutes left to play and, although the Hoyas would get one back, the Lady Jays were able to buckle down defensively and earn the 8-6 win.
“Georgetown made some good adjustments,” Schweizer said. “They took a lot of time on offense and capitalized in their transitions off the draw. They also took advantage of mistakes that we might have made. They pulled together as a team and decided that they wanted this more and they deserved to win.”
“Just taking a deep breath and keeping our composure was important,” Schweizer said. “We did the little things right and had a few goals spark our energy to get back in it.”
“Because [Georgetown] is one of our biggest rivals, [they] are always a huge mental challenge”, Emerson said. “I think as a team we were able to stay mentally strong even when they scored a few.”
The team returns to action Wednesday against Vanderbilt at home.
