Navy crushes UMass to make first Elite 8

Julia Collins tied a Navy record with eight goals in their rout of UMass, which earned the Mids a spot in the NCAA Quarterfinals for the first time in program history.

For the fifth time this season, the Navy women’s lacrosse team topped 20 goals in a game and this time it got them into the quarterfinals of the NCAA Tournament for the first time in school history. Navy will take on the second-seeded and defending national champion North Carolina Tar Heels in Chapel Hill on Saturday, May 20 at 1 pm in the quarterfinals.

“It is amazing,” head coach Cindy Timchal said. “It was a great game for Navy women’s lacrosse. It was a good day to have a day. I am proud of the team. I want to give a shout out to our amazing lacrosse coaches in Aly Messinger, Gabby Capuzzi, and Matt Holman. They have done a wonderful job pulling this all together. The kids believe in them. Shout out to them. I am proud of our team. We beat a really good UMass team that went to the Elite eight last year. It was a good day for Navy women’s lacrosse.”

Julia Collins tied a Navy record with eight goals in the blowout victory, but she was not even Navy’s points leader in the game. Kelly Larkin had nine points after scoring three goals with six assists. Jenna Collins matched her six assists to go with her two goals.

Overall, Navy had five players score at least hat tricks and six players have multi-goal games. Morgan Young had three goals to go with four assists while Kayla Harris scored four times and Meg O’Donnell scored three goals in the game.

Navy outshot UMass 34-25, but impressively, the Mids got out to a burning start despite only holding an 18-17 shot lead at halftime, but Maryland goalkeeper Ingrid Boyum made six first-half saves and the offense did more than just their part in helping with the rout.

Navy bolted out to an 8-1 lead in the game. Larkin, Jenna Collins, and Julia Collins each scored in under a two-minute span to put the Mids up 3-0 in the third minutes of the game. Then, after Kiley Anderson put UMass on the board with a goal late in the fourth minutes of the game, Navy rattled off five straight scores to take their 8-1 lead with 17:34 left in the opening half.

Both Julia Collins and Larkin scored twice in that run while Young had three assists. Collins completed her natural hat trick before 10 minutes ran off the clock in the game. Larkin scored her third goal of the game to complete the run in the 13th minute.

UMass was able to mount a comeback attempt and outscored Navy 6-2 over just an eight-minute span to cut their deficit to just three at 10-7 with 7:54 left in the first half. But that would be the closest they would get.

Navy scored the final two goals of the first half to take a 12-7 lead into the break. They then scored the first six goals of the second half to put things away. Navy led 18-7 before six minutes even rank off the clock in the second half. They forced the running clock on a goal by Jenna Collins with 25:44 left in the game. Young opened the second half with her 50th goal of the game.

UMass scored three goals in a row to end Navy’s eight-goal run, but the mids responded with five more in a row to further hammer the nail in the coffin. Julia Collin scored Navy’s final three goals to get her total up to eight. UMass scored one last goal with 67 seconds left in the game.

Navy’s offense certainly did a great job controlling possession to make a comeback an impossible task for UMass, but they also had success pressuring and forcing turnovers in the game. Marie Valenti had four caused turnovers to go with her five ground balls in the game. Blake Smith had three caused turnovers and four ground balls with three draw controls. Julia Collins led Navy with eight draw controls.

Navy’s 23 goals in the game were the second most they’ve scored this year, behind their 24 against Lafayette in the regular season finale and matched North Carolina’s total in a 23-12 win over Virginia for the most so far in this year’s NCAA Tournament. It is the most they have scored in an NCAA tournament game.

Collins’ eight goals in the game matches the efforts of Loren Generi and Danielle Vivonetto. Generi scored eight goals twice in 2013. Vivonetto scored eight goals in a game in 2010.

Boyum earned her 17th victory of the year, tying Annie Foky for the most in a year. Foky was 17-3 in 2013.

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Corey Johns

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You could say Corey was born to become a sports journalist. His father won a national championship coaching college soccer. His mother is a baseball fanatic who hasn't missed seeing an Orioles game since 1983 (literally, sometimes it's annoying). His great uncle was a big-time boxing promoter and his maternal grandfather was once a department head at the Baltimore Sun. Basically, sports and journalism run through his blood. He played just about every little league sports there was when he was a kid and was a multi-sport athlete in high school; even playing in the first-ever high school sanction Rugby game in the country. Eventually he retired from sports as an undefeated Maryland state Rugby champion as a high school senior. Perhaps lack of athletic talent has more to do with the retirement, but he will tell you that it more had to do with a great desire to jump right into media. Upon his graduation from University of Maryland, Baltimore County as a triple communications major, Corey started the So Much Sports network and has continued to grow his websites and continues to work to make them premier sports media outlets.

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