Women’s Lacrosse Team Wins Fifth Straight Big Ten Title

The No. 2 Maryland women’s lacrosse team capped off a perfect regular season with a 19–12 win over No. 23 Johns Hopkins on Saturday to win their fifth straight Big Ten outright regular season championship.

Since the Terps entered the Big Ten in 2015, Maryland has never lost a regular season conference game (28–0). Dating back to when Cathy Reese became head coach in 2007 and the Terps were in the ACC, Maryland has won the regular season championship in 11 of 13 seasons.

“So proud of my team for how we’ve handled and responded every bit of the way this season,” she said. “Happy for our girls that they get to celebrate and enjoy being Big Ten regular season champions."

Graduate student Erica Evans led the effort offensively with a season-high seven points with six goals and one assist as well as a groundball and caused turnover. Five players made all of Maryland’s goals—all hat tricks—as junior Kali Hartshorn posted four goals, seniors Jen Giles and Caroline Steele each had three goals and two assists, and junior Brindi Griffin notched three goals and one assist.

Maryland secured 19 draw controls led by a career-high 10 by junior Lizzie Colson and eight by Hartshorn. The Terps only turned the ball over five times, opposed to the Blue Jays’ 13, and caused eight, led by two from senior Julia Braig.

Down 1–0, Maryland went on a five-goal run with two from Evans, and one apiece by Steele, Griffin and Giles. After Hopkins responded with two straight, Griffin and Giles got two more. Maryland led 8–5 at the half. Giles had four first-half points with two goals and two assists.

Hartshorn had all four of her goals in the second half to lead an 11-goal effort. Steele had four second-half points with two goals and two assists as well. The duo got the Terps out to their biggest lead at 19-10 before finishing the game with a 19–12 advantage.

With the win, Maryland capped off their fourth undefeated regular season in the past five seasons at 17–0.

The Terps will next head to the Big Ten Tournament at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore as the No. 1  seed. Maryland will play No. 4 Penn State at 5 p.m. Friday on the Big Ten Network.