Boxscore

File Photo by Mark Campbell

NEWARK, Del. -- The University of Delaware women’s lacrosse team struggled offensively as the Blue Hens fell to No. 20 Loyola, 11-5 at Rullo Stadium Monday afternoon in non-league play. Delaware’s (3-4) five goals was the lowest scoring output since Apr. 16, 2006 when the Blue Hens fell to then No. 17-ranked James Madison 16-5.

Loyola (7-1), who has defeated two ranked opponents this season and has now won six straight, scored the game’s first eight goals in a nearly 40-minute span. The Greyhounds shut Delaware out in the first half and over 10 minutes into the second half. They out-shot the Blue Hens 27-19, won the groundball battle 17-14 and won 13 draw controls to UD’s four.

Delaware’s senior goalkeeper Jessica Cerveny fell to 3-4 with the loss. She played all 60 minutes, making six saves while allowing 11 goals. Loyola’s Meg Steffe started for the Greyhounds, making two saves to shut the Blue Hens out in the first half. Kerry Stoothoff came in to play the second half in the Greyhound goal, and she made five saves while allowing five goals.

Junior attack Emily Schaknowski led the way for Delaware with a goal and an assist. Senior midfielder Deb Sloan saw limited action as she is still nursing a back injury, but managed to score her team-leading 11th goal of the season. She is just two points away from reaching 100 for her career. Junior attack Courtney Aburn (at right) and sophomore midfielder Julianna Jeffers tied for the team-high for UD with four shots.

Meg Taylor opened the scoring for Loyola with a goal right before the 25-minute mark off an assist from Emily Gibson. Then the Greyhounds’ leading scorer Grace Gavin scored the first of her four goals for the afternoon at 19:21 off an assist from Mary Heneberry. Gavin’s four goals gave her 29 for the season.

A couple of minutes later, Colleen O’Keefe would score her 10th goal of the season to extend Loyola’s lead to 3-0. Neither team would score for over 13 minutes until Abby Rehfuss scored near the three-minute mark to give the Greyhounds a 4-0 lead going into halftime.

Rehfuss would strike again 24 seconds into the second stanza with a goal off an asisst from O’Keefe. Gavin, Gibson and O’Keefe would add three more Loyola goals in a span of within five minutes, and the Loyola lead was 8-0.

Schaknowski finally stopped the bleeding at 19:05 with an unassisted goal - her sixth of the season. Not a minute later, Jeffers scored her seventh goal of the year off senior midfielder Alexis Curcio’s first assist of the season, and the Blue Hens were within six at 8-2.

After Gavin scored her third goal of the game at 17:05, Sloan scored on a free-position shot almost three minutes later to make the score 9-3. But Loyola answered again - this time, it was Mary Heneberry off O’Keefe’s third assist of the game. O’Keefe now has 13 asissts for the season.

Freshman midfielder Stephanie Allen and junior captain Morgan Marino each scored their second goals of the season at 4:06 and 1:59, respectively to bring the Hens within five, but Grace finished off her four-goal day with her 29th goal of the season at 1:12, sending Loyola to the 11-5 win.