Johns Hopkins ready for challenge of NCAA Women's Lacrosse Tournament
BALTIMORE - Three Maryland men's lacrosse teams and three women's teams are preparing for their clashes in the NCAA Tournament this week.
The women start on Friday with Maryland, Loyola and Johns Hopkins all earning spots in the tournament.
Johns Hopkins practiced on Wednesday, getting ready for Friday's match against Fairfield at Yale.
The Blue Jays received an at-large bid with a record of 11-and-7.
But, you have to look deeper at their season than the record.
Hopkins played the toughest schedule in the country with 11 of their 18 games against ranked opponents.
The Jays battled top-ranked Northwestern in a one-point loss in the Big Ten Tournament last week.
They hope to build off that performance.
"In past year's, maybe we all haven't thought that we could compete with anyone," Johns Hopkins senior Jordan Carr said. "Our strength of schedule is really high, showing that we can play with any team in the country. We were in it (against Northwestern) the entire game. We came back from a five-goal deficit. So being able to comeback and make it a one-goal game and play almost a full 60, just being able to go out and do that versus any team we play is something we took away from that."
"Anytime you can do that, there is some success to it, so we were able to do that pretty much for 55 minutes together the other day and that's what we were after," Johns Hopkins coach Tim McCormack said. "So, it's always a good thing when you can do that."
Also on Friday, Loyola faces Duke at the University of Pennsylvania and No. 4 seed Maryland hosts Robert Morris.
