Last Friday, the No. 13 Quakers felt the pangs of an upset when they suffered defeat at the hands of a lower-ranked Cornell. As they headed to Baltimore last night to take on No. 12 Johns Hopkins, they hoped for a surprise victory of their own.
But the small difference in ranking proved harder to overcome than anticipated as the Blue Jays thumped the Quakers, 13-4.
Senior Allie Juras opened the scoring, giving Penn (4-3, 1-1 Ivy) a 1-0 lead with her goal from a free position shot two minutes into the first half.
However, just three minutes later Johns Hopkins (6-2) responded with a goal of its own. One point, though, did not satisfy the Blue Jays, who hammered the Quakers with five more goals before the end of the half.
Even Juras' second score of the night, which she earned with just under five minutes left in the first half, could not save the struggling Quakers.
An already-imposing 6-2 deficit coming into the second 30 minutes of play soon worsened. The Blue Jays put two shots past Quakers goalie Liz Lorelli, who contributed 13 saves to Penn's performance, within the first five minutes of the second half.
But the Quakers' offense began to gain momentum, ignited by goals from Juras, who completed her hat trick, and junior Ali Ryan.
"If we had started the game the way we started the second half, it would have been a different story," Penn coach Karin Brower said. "We played with a lot of heart in the second half."
But Johns Hopkins had other plans for the course of the matchup.
The Blue Jays shifted their primary focus to maintaining possession with conservative passes and shut down the Quakers for the rest of the game.
"We had our shot when it was 8-4 [in the second half]," Brower said, "and they saw that. So they decided to stall."
The technique effectively silenced the frustrated Quakers, and as time ran down the Blue Jays just poured it on the Red and Blue. After not scoring for nearly 20 minutes, Hopkins netted five goals in the final 6:09 to push the score to 13-4. The Blue Jays left no doubt as to which team controlled game dynamics.
"We have got to play cleaner, better lacrosse," said Brower, who pointed specifically to ground balls as an area in need of improvement.
Penn will have two days to correct the errors before their next match at Columbia Saturday night. The Quakers will look to climb in the conference standings and achieve a winning league record when they jump back into Ivy League play this weekend.
The Lions have a 4-3 record through the end of non-conference play. Their loss to Quinnipiac on Tuesday ended a nine-game non-conference winning streak.
