#13 W Lacrosse scores with 9 seconds left to beat #25 Towson, now 9-0
Riding the nation's longest winning streak, #13 Michigan faced another ranked opponent today in #25 Towson at U-M Lacrosse Stadium.
Michigan has already beaten #25 Dartmouth, #14 Colorado and #9 Denver. The Maize & Blue were looking for their 4th win over a ranked team this season and 5th in the program's 6 year history.
Towson is ranked #25 but was 0-5. All of their losses came against ranked opponents. Last season in coach Hannah Nielsen's first season, #10 Towson handed an unranked Michigan team a 14-7 loss on the road.
This team has grown up quite a bit since.
Today Michigan got out to a 5-2 lead in the first half and controlled play, leading in both shots (18-10) and draw controls (9-4). Towson went on a bit of a run to close the half though as the Wolverines led 7-5 at halftime. Lilly Grass and Maggie Kane both had two goals apiece in the opening half.
The second half was when things got tense.
Towson scored the first 3 goals of the second half to take an 8-7 lead, the first time the Wolverines had seriously been on their heels in the second half since the last time they faced a ranked opponent.
However two goals by Caitlin Muir, another from Maggie Kane and Adriana Pendino's first gave Michigan an 11-8 lead with 9 minutes left to play. The Wolverines couldn't shake Towson though who was hungry for their first win of the season as Towson would respond with a 3-0 run of their own and tied the game with 23 seconds left.
Michigan won what would be a crucial final draw control of the game and called timeout. Out of the timeout it was Molly Garrett with the ball and she took it all the way to the cage and scored the game-winning goal with just 9.9 seconds left. Her second game-winner of the season over the #25 ranked team.
Michigan avoided overtime and held on to win 12-11 over #25 Towson, dropping them to 0-6 and presumably knocking them out of the Top-25.
Michigan held the advantage in shots (37-19), shots on goal (26-16) and the draw control (15-10).
Michigan is now 9-0 and has won 10 straight games going back to last season. Michigan has won 5 straight games against Top-25 opponents after starting 0-35 as a program against ranked teams from 2014 - 4/3/2018.
That streak started last season in the finale at #16 Penn State. Maggie Kane's buzzer beater goal with no time left on the clock gave Michigan a 12-11 shocking upset victory. And up next on the schedule is that same opponent.
Michigan will face #19 Penn State on Saturday at Noon at U-M Lacrosse Stadium in the B1G opener.
Is Nielsen the clear COTY at this point in the year?
March 10th, 2019 at 10:08 PM ^
Should be.
5 more wins and she'll be the winningest coach in program history.
Jennifer Ulehla won 20 games in 4 years here. Hannah is at 16 in less than 2 seasons.
March 10th, 2019 at 10:29 PM ^
I guess we're a women's lax school now.
And we better stay that way.
Otherwise, we'll be a women's ex-lax school.
March 10th, 2019 at 11:29 PM ^
Only program in the athletic department that has come to play. Also maybe baseball.
March 11th, 2019 at 12:33 AM ^
MBB- 26-5, top-10 ranked
WBB- tournament lock for the 2nd year in a row
W Gymnastics- #7, another B1G regular season championship
M Gymnastics- first place, ranked #3
M Swim- #6
W Swim- #3
Wrestling- #5, 13-1
Softball- beat two top-10 teams last week and #16 on the road on Friday
Water Polo- #6 and far and away the best team in their conference
Fall sports-
Field Hockey- B1G Champions
W Cross Country- B1G Champions
Volleyball- NCAA Sweet 16
M Soccer- 12-5-4, NCAA Tournament
Michigan is currently 19-5-1 vs Ohio State in all sports this year and 21-9-3 vs MSU.
Troll.
Way to shut up the haters!
March 10th, 2019 at 11:51 PM ^
Yeah Nielsen is a proven winner with a cut-throat attitude..great hire by Warde.
Michigan should be ranked #1 next week. how many top 25 wins is that already ? 5-6
Seems like almost every team we play is a top-25-er. And Towson is #25 with a 0-5 record? Please tell me there are more than 25 teams in the league! I'll bet there can't be many more than that.
EDIT: Thanks for the info re the number of teams. With 115 teams in consideration, Top 25 takes on added relevance. I was under the mistaken impression that there were only 40 or 50 teams. My bad.
Most polls in lacrosse only rank the top 20. WD is probably referencing the only Top 25 poll in existence.
I'm sure Towson will drop out, but every one of their losses was to a ranked team in pretty close games. Based on last year's RPI, there were 115 D1 programs. I am pretty sure I read that when we played Kent State last week that they were in their first season, so I suspect there are more than 115 current teams.
Towson finished last year ranked #9 in the RPI fwiw.
That's pretty righteous, man.
Funny how it was the success of the men's program that led to the jump to D1 but the women are the ones capitalizing on it.
March 11th, 2019 at 11:07 AM ^
Hail to the Victors! Keep it going!
March 11th, 2019 at 11:26 AM ^
Hell yah ladies!! GO BLUE!!
The new poll has Michigan at #11, one spot behind Northwestern. Ohio State and Penn State are just outside the Top 20. Colorado just got back into the Top 20 as well.