HPU Women’s Lacrosse Panthers Fall At No. 20 Ohio State 13-5

The High Point University women’s lacrosse team fell at No. 20 Ohio State 13-5 on Monday afternoon. The loss wrapped up a tough four-game road trip, which featured two games against top-20 nationally ranked opponents, and moved the Panthers to 2-3 overall on the season.

“I think we had the right game plan going into today’s game but we fell behind early, which made it tough for us to overcome the deficit,” said HPU head coach Lyndsey Boswell. “Our offense just wasn’t coming together today, which took momentum away from our defenders. Overall, I think that the defense kept us in the game but it was tough since we played so many minutes on defense. We’re looking forward to getting back on the practice field before we play again Friday but even more than that it will be nice to play at home in front of our fans and in our stadium.”

Senior Alec Perry scored two goals in the contest to give her a team-high 12 points on the year while Sara Kuhlman, an Ohio native, had a goal and an assist for High Point.

HPU fell behind early when the Buckeyes’ Katie Chase scored in the first four minutes of play. The Panthers responded quickly, however, when Kuhlman found sophomore Emily Meier with a pass in front of the net. Meier took the ball and used an underhand shovel shot to sneak it past OSU’s goalkeeper to knot the score 1-1.

The Panthers were unable to add another in the first half while the Buckeyes scored six unanswered to send HPU into half trailing 7-1.

HPU broke OSU’s scoring streak just 36 seconds into the second period of play when Kuhlman scored a goal of her own on a free-position attempt to bring the Panthers within five. After goals by both teams, OSU rattled off four straight to push the score to 12-3 before redshirt-sophomore Emilie Pugliese scored for HPU. Perry followed that up with her second goal of the day and the Panthers’ final score.

OSU’s Cian Dabrowski scored the final goal of the day and her fourth of the day with just under 11 minutes to play to push the Buckeyes to a 13-5 victory.

Junior Julia Burns, who was named the Big South Defensive Player of the Week today for her performance against UMBC, made six saves in the cage for HPU.

The Panthers were outshot by Ohio State 25-14 and 19-8 in shots on goal in the game. HPU had 10-of-14 successful clears while the Buckeyes were successful in 12-of-13 attempts.

High Point returns to Vert Stadium on Friday, March 14 for a game against Villanova at 3 p.m. It will be the Panthers’ first home game since the season-opening win over American on Feb. 8 and will mark the start of a five-game home stand for HPU.