Phillylacrosse.com, Posted 5/12/24
From Press Release
The eighth-seeded University of Pennsylvania women’s lacrosse team kept a flashy Loyola team at bay throughout Sunday’s NCAA Championship second-round game at Franklin Field and pulled out a 12-9 decision.
Penn (15-4) now advances to the quarterfinal round and will face defending champion and top-seeded Northwestern on Thursday in Evanston, Ill. The Wildcats advanced to the quarters with a 17-4 win over Denver on Sunday. Patriot League champion Loyola’s season ends at 18-3, with two of those losses coming to the Quakers.
Quaker Notemeal
*Penn has advanced to the quarterfinal round of the NCAA Championship six times now, the most recent coming in 2016.
*Penn never trailed in Sunday’s game, the Greyhounds coming back to tie just once, at 4-4.
*The biggest surprise? How about senior Izzy Rohr (Episcopal Academy), the two-time Ivy League Defender of the Year, who found a lane on a clear and went straight to goal for her first collegiate goal when the game was still just 5-4 in the third quarter.
*Penn won despite being outshot (32-27) and losing the draw control battle (17-8). This was just the second time the Quakers lost the draw battle this season and just the third time they were outshot.
*Loyola scored just 15 goals across its two games with Penn this season; in their other 19 contests, the Greyhounds averaged 16.4 goals per game.
*Junior Anna Brandt led Penn with three goals on Sunday, extending her multi-goal and multi-point streaks to 16 games and her goals/points streaks to 25 contests.
*Junior Erika Chung had three assists, giving her 17 across Penn’s last four games and 26 across the last six.
*Senior Niki Miles scored twice, giving her multiple goals and multiple points in 33 of Penn’s last 34 games; she also extended her goal-scoring streak to 39 games and her point-scoring streak to 43.
*Senior Maria Themelis had Penn’s first two goals on Sunday, her second straight multi-goal game after she had just one prior to NCAA play (3 goals at Dartmouth in the regular-season finale on April 27).
*Senior Lexi Edmonds also scored twice, giving her four goals on the weekend; after scoring just two goals across Penn’s first 13 games she has 10 in the last six.
*Freshman Catherine Berkery was Penn’s other two-goal scorer on Sunday, her second straight multi-goal game and 12th this season.
*At the other end, senior goalkeeper Kelly Van Hoesen had 12 saves which tied a career high set two times previously, most recently on March 22, 2023 against Maryland.
*Van Hoesen has now recorded a double-digit save total in three straight games (.579 save percentage in that span) and four of the last five contests.
