Loyola hands Penn State its first loss

Story posted February 29, 2020 in CommRadio, Sports by Logan Bourandas

What started as a back and forth game in the first half turned bad quickly for the Nittany Lions. After being down 11-7 in the first half, the Greyhounds went on two seperate four-goal runs in the second to earn a huge resume win as they look to climb even further inside the top five.

Both teams came into the contest undefeated with Penn State being 4-0 and Loyola at 3-0. The Nittany Lions started the season with two close wins against Towson and Lehigh then following those up with two blowout wins against Duquesne and Cornell. Loyola, however, had a much tougher road before traveling to State College.

Two of its three wins this season were against ranked opponents beating No. 24 Johns Hopkins by nine and No. 4 Florida in its last contest by 11. Loyola now arguably has the best resume in the nation with yet another blowout win against a ranked team.

Four Loyola players recorded three goals or more in the game while the Nittany Lions had only one such player as Maria Auth scored her third in the game as time expired on a free position shot.

"The draw controls were just a huge advantage to Loyola, even when we came up with some we turned it over quickly so we just didn’t have the possessions that we needed in order to score the goals there they just out possessioned us," Missy Doherty said.

Loyola held a 20-14 advantage in draw controls winning eleven of them in the first half. The Greyhounds also held advantages in categories such as shots and turnovers in the game.

The Greyhounds will continue their Pennsylvania road trip as they make the trip from University Park to Philadelphia to take on Penn. Meanwhile, the Nittany Lions will start a two game road trip, taking on James Madison and Vanderbilt before starting conference play against Northwestern.

 

Logan Bourandas is a freshman majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him email lxb5412@psu,edu.