With one game remaining in the regular season, the Ohio State women's lacrosse team may have finally hit its stride.
After starting the season strong by winning six of their first eight games, the Buckeyes hit a slide at midseason and lost four of their next five. Now the team has rebounded with three consecutive wins, hoping to make it four-in-a-row against Johns Hopkins tonight.
"Everybody is clicking," senior attacker Kristen Slahor said. "It's one of the best years I've been here for our chemistry."
Slahor leads the nation in assists with 55. She also ranks third in scoring with 87 points, well above her 73 last year.
"I think it makes everybody happy for each other," Slahor said about her achievement. "It rubs off on everybody else."
When the season began, the Buckeyes (10-6, 1-2 in the American Lacrosse Conference) hoped for a national ranking and a high seed in the conference tournament. With only five seniors gone from last year's 9-7 squad, the core of the team returned for another chance at the conference title.
"Our big goal was to win the conference," senior attacker Jessica Patane said. "We wanted to do better than last season."
The team cruised through the first half of the season, dropping only two games to No. 1 Northwestern and No. 11 Notre Dame. But the losing streak began against Bucknell. The Buckeyes jumped to a 11-3 lead early in the first half. The lead would fall to 17-15 with five minutes remaining, and three unanswered goals by Bucknell gave OSU their toughest loss of the season.
Double-digit losses to North Carolina and Maryland followed. A 7-17 loss to No. 9 Vanderbilt was an especially devastating blow for Patane.
"We didn't expect to lose to Vanderbilt," Patane said. "We weren't playing that well. We were kind of in a slump."
A pair of conference games remained for the team, and their goal of a three-seed in the ALC Tournament was still within reach.
"Sometimes teams fold at the end when things aren't going real well," coach Sue Stimmel said. "It was great to see us come back and really be competitive and realize there's a whole lot of season left."
The Buckeyes have rallied and won their last three against Davidson, Penn State and Cincinnati. A win tonight will give the women their longest winning streak since 2003.
The ALC Tournament begins May 2 in Evanston, Illinois. The team hopes to ride their momentum through the finals, which may include a rematch with undefeated Northwestern. The Wildcats defeated OSU earlier this season, 21-5, but sophomore attacker Brittney Zerhusen is
optimistic.
"We can knock off Northwestern just as easily as anybody else," Zerhusen said. "You have to lay it all out there for 60 minutes, and I think that's definitely what it takes to beat Northwestern."
Nick Bechtel can be reached at bechtel.42@osu.edu.
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