W. Lacrosse Falls to No. 1 Maryland, 14-4

In its final game of the year against the No.1 Terrapins, the Harvard women's lacrosse team scored the first two goals of the contest, but it could only manage two more in the rest of the match.

Maryland (18-0) used two streaks of five unanswered goals to close its undefeated season with a 14-4 victory.

The loss was the third straight for the Crimson (6-9, 1-6 Ivy).

Harvard got on the board early in the first half when senior Lauren Corkery fed a pass into junior Heather Gotha who beat Terrapin goaltender Alexis Venechanos for the early 1-0 lead.

"We were focused and confident before the game," Gotha said. "They had only beaten Dartmouth and Princeton by one goal so we knew we could play with them."

Harvard extended its lead to two when senior Ali Harper picked up a rebound behind the net and wrapped around the goal to score.

"Our energy level was really high in the beginning," Corkery said. "We knew we'd have to come out strong."

But Maryland regrouped after a timeout and senior Quinn Carney got the Terrapins on the board at 18:55.

Two minutes later Carney fed a pass from behind the net to fellow senior Allison Comito who beat sophomore goaltender Nora Guyer to tie the game. Juniors Meredith Egan and Courtney Hobbs each scored to extend Maryland's lead to 4-2 with just over ten minutes remaining in the first half.

But Harper would answer again for the Crimson. After the Crimson took its time to set up offensively, Corkery delivered another nice feed inside, and Harper finished for her second goal of the game.

The Terrapins scored the next three goals to close out the half ahead by four, 7-3.

"They passed the ball really quickly and made some shots from unbelievable angles," Corkery said.

The Crimson had possession for much of the first five minutes of the second half but were unable to get any good looks on goal.

Egan took over for the Terrapins and scored a goal and assisted on another in the span of just over a minute to extend Maryland's lead to 9-3 just under ten minutes into the half.

Senior Jennifer Lee responded at 21:45, beating two inside the fan before burying as shot in the side netting to break Maryland's streak of five unanswered goals.

But that was as close as Harvard would come as Maryland closed the game with five straight goals.

Comito notched here third and fourth tallies while fellow senior Meg McNamara scored two straight to put the game out of reach for the Crimson.

Harvard had several more opportunities to score in the final minutes, but sophomore goaltender Virginia Solomon, who replaced Venechanos midway through the second half, made seven saves.

Guyer finished with seven saves on 28 Terrapin shots. Harvard managed 16 shots for the game.

The Crimson was held under five goals only one other time this season, in an 8-3 defeat at Notre Dame.

"They were big, fast, and had good stick skills," Gotha said. "They worked really well together as a team."

The Crimson's sub-.500 season belies a competitiveness present in many of their games throughout the year.

"We were very unlucky in a lot of our games this year," Corkery said. "We were competitive with a lot of teams but were just unable to pull out wins."