Penn women's lacrosse falls to southern foe in rainstorm

No. 12 Penn women’s lacrosse has dominated the Ivy League in recent years.

But against elite opponents, it’s been a different story.

Taking on No. 2 Maryland at home, the Quakers were thoroughly outclassed by the Terrapins, falling, 15-5, in their eighth loss to a top-five team in the last three seasons.

With a driving rainstorm pounding the turf at Franklin Field from the opening draw, Maryland (10-0) pounced on Penn (4-2) quickly, as redshirt-junior attack Brooke Griffin charged down the left wing and ripped a rocket of a shot past Penn junior goalie Lucy Ferguson’s shoulder just 14 seconds into the game.

It was all downhill from there for Ferguson and Penn’s defense.

A little under 90 seconds later, senior midfield Beth Glaros pickpocketed Penn junior defender Meg Markham at midfield and charged in on a breakaway, easily beating Ferguson to her left to make it 2-0.

“They’re very fast, they push the fast break, they move very quickly and our defense was on its heels,” coach Karin Brower Corbett said. “We weren’t ready from the first whistle, and we found ourselves in a hole really quickly.”

After another Glaros goal and a converted free position by sophomore midfield Taylor Cummings, the Red and Blue finally got on the board after sophomore midfield Iris Williamson worked her way in close and scored easily to close the gap to 4-1 with 16:40 to go in the half.

But that was as close as the Quakers would come for the rest of the evening, as the Terps poured in five goals in a span of two minutes and 22 seconds to put the game thoroughly out of reach.

With 5:10 to go in the first half and the score 9-2, Corbett had finally seen enough, pulling Ferguson in favor of her backup, senior Carly Churchill.

“[Ferguson] wasn’t seeing the ball,” Corbett said. “They were shooting high and she was going back and not attacking it so we felt we needed a change and Church[ill] comes in and saves the ball high.”

The sudden collapse on the defensive end was particularly befuddling given Penn’s sterling reputation in its own end of the field — the Quakers’ 7.40 goals against average entering the game was the 11th-best mark in the country.

Those struggles were compounded by an offense that managed to miss the net on 10 of its 21 shots, which left Penn with little hope of maintaining its three-game winning streak.

With three more nonconference games left before Ivy play resumes — two against ranked opponents — Corbett knows that her team needs to pick up the pace.

“It’s been plaguing us. Our shooting has really been a problem,” she said.

“We’ve got to be better.”

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