MOVIN' ON! Women's Lacrosse Knocks Off Loyola in NCAA Second Round, 12-9 - University of Pennsylvania Athletics (2024)

Hunter Martin

• Box Score

Game Recap: Women's Lacrosse | May 12, 2024

Quakers to face defending champ, top-seeded Northwestern in quarterfinals

PHlLADELPHIA – 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.

*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.

*The biggest surprise? How about senior Izzy Rohr, 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.

*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.

How It Happened
Themelis got things started early for the Quakers, scoring a pair of unassisted goals before the game was even four minutes old. Loyola got on the board midway through the quarter on a free-position shot, but Miles matched it nearly two minutes later with her own free-position tally and Penn led 3-1 after one quarter.

Miles struck with an unassisted goal four minutes into the second, pushing Penn up by three, but that would be the Quakers' only goal in the quarter and the Greyhounds took advantage. Three goals in the final seven minutes—one a slick behind-the-back tally by Hounds star Chase Boyle—tied things up a 4-4, and the teams took that knotted score to the locker rooms at halftime.

Brandt registered her first of the day on a free position a little more than two minutes into the third quarter, and then Rohr surprised everyone by rolling down the right side of the field and not stopping until she was directly in front of the goal and had deposited a shot into the back of the net. That set off a frenzied celebration by the Quakers faithful, on the field and in the stands.

Loyola recovered, scoring a little less than three minutes later, but Brandt rocketed home a shot to make it 7-5 with 5:31 left in the period. Sydni Black scored a lovely unassisted goal for Loyola a little less than a minute later, getting in front and converting a backhanded shot, and Penn held a precarious 7-6 lead as the teams went to the final quarter.

Penn went a player up quickly in the fourth and took advantage, Berkery finishing a feed from Keeley Block, and then Brandt converted a free-position shot for her hat trick. That gave the Quakers a three-goal lead, 9-6, with a little less than 13 minutes to play. Loyola got one back just 47 seconds later, but then Chung found a wide-open Edmonds in front for the senior to finish with 10:15 left. More than four minutes went by before another goal was scored, this time by Berkery off a Chung feed in another player-up situation, and Penn was out to its largest lead of the day with 5:51 left, 11-7.

Loyola kept things interesting. Georgia Latch took a feed from Regan Kielmeyer, spun off her defender and scoredwith 5:02 left, and then the Hounds won the draw. However, the Penn defense stiffened, and when Edmonds scored off a Chung feed with 2:53 left you could feel the relief returning to the fan base. Latch needed 19 seconds to get one back, rocketing one past Van Hoesen from distance off a Boyle feed, but that was all the scoring for the rest of the game.

Up Next
Penn and Northwestern will play their quarterfinal game on Thursday at 7:30 p.m. (6:30 Chicago time). The game will be televised live on ESPNU.

For the latest on Penn women's lacrosse, follow @PennWomensLax on X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram, and on the web at PennAthletics.com.

#EarnEverything | #FightOnPenn