SPARKS, Md. — It hadn’t happened since Shelley Klaes’ second season with James Madison. The Dukes, a team respected for their year-over-year consistency since Klaes took over the program in 2007, entered Saturday’s game against No. 20 UConn with an 0-2 record.

Perhaps you could write off the first loss — a 15-8 result against No. 2 North Carolina that was closer than the score would indicate. But the second loss shocked the lacrosse world Wednesday night when Virginia Tech beat its in-state rival for the first time in history.

During a season in which, as things stand now, James Madison is ineligible to win the CAA’s automatic qualifier due to the university’s impending conference change, every win matters as the team chases an at-large berth.

Things got going in the right direction Saturday.

No. 14 James Madison got six goals from Isabella Peterson, three goals from Kacey Knobloch, three assists from Katie Checkosky and shook off an early test from UConn to beat the Huskies 13-7 at USA Lacrosse headquarters.

Molly Dougherty made four saves and is just one away from making the 500th stop of her career. She would be the sixth James Madison goalie to reach that milestone.

“I think against Virginia Tech, we just didn’t focus enough on the little things,” Dougherty said. “Today, it took each individual’s effort to get the team going to where we wanted it to go. Competition is one thing, but the whole point of our sport is that we play for those weeks in May. Everyone wants to play for then, and every game before then is just preparing us.”

It was an inauspicious beginning for the Dukes. If the first five minutes were any indication of how the game was going to go, James Madison looked like it was about to stare down an 0-3 record. UConn (1-1) led 3-0 on two goals from Grace Coon and another from Lia LaPrise, and the Huskies defense was aggressive in jumping lanes and putting pressure on the ball. JMU looked to a step behind.

After Kate Shaffer fed Coon for a 3-0 lead, Rachel Matey (seven draw controls, two ground balls) took the JMU defense aside and wiped the slate clean. It was time to get to work.

“We were on our heels for a second, and we just needed to check ourselves and understand that we needed to get back in the game,” Dougherty said.

The Dukes did just that. The defense improved, forcing UConn into five failed clears and 10 caused turnovers. Mairead Durkin caused four on her own.

Between the close of the first quarter and the beginning of the second, JMU used a 4-0 run to take a 4-3 lead. Madalyn George knotted the score at 4 for UConn, but JMU scored seven of the next eight goals for a commanding 11-5 lead by the end of the third quarter.

“[Peterson] stepped up for us throughout the entire game. It was nice to see her generate offense with and without the ball,” Klaes said. “The fact that our team is able to manage a faceguard with her and still find other people scoring, that’s huge. In the first two games, we didn’t show toughness on the ball. For us to be able to weather the storm of the physical, on-ball play we saw today shows a sign of maturity.”

While February losses traditionally mean very little in the scope of a long season, James Madison’s play through two games left much to be desired. Klaes said there some complacency and a lack of focus on the little things. Players were laser-focused on May, knowing an at-large berth would be their only path to the NCAA tournament, rather than paying attention to the team across from them.

That’s not a winning strategy against the traditionally strong teams Klaes schedules early on. North Carolina is almost always the team’s first game, and other ACC teams like Virginia Tech and Virginia tend to be on the docket, too. Not to mention upcoming matchups against Big Ten foes like Ohio State, Penn State and Rutgers by March 12.

“You might not be aware of the problems within your program until you get punched in the gut,” said Klaes, who wanted to see her team get back to being gritty. “I schedule like I schedule so that we can figure those issues out early and then have time to make change, rather than wait until the end of the season to hit your biggest teams.

“For us, we schedule opponents that we respect, opponents that are going to be able to expose our weaknesses early, so we can clean up that trash.”

The first step in moving past their early struggles accomplished, don’t expect James Madison to relax with the ominous clouds no longer overhead. Klaes acknowledged that every game means just a bit more without the possibility of a CAA championship. That means putting extra focus on every game on the schedule, not jumping ahead to what could be.

“My captains when I was walking in [the locker room] were talking about how Monday starts work again,” Klaes said. “We recognize what put us in the hole, and we’re not going to go back into that situation. Just because we have one good practice or game doesn’t mean the next day’s going to be there.”