Elon’s win over then-No. 13 James Madison on Sunday was a long time coming.
In seven matchups since 2014, the Phoenix never managed to take down the Dukes, who had won five Colonial Athletic Association championships and an NCAA title in that span. Josh Hexter has been Elon’s coach for all eight of those years, so he’s grown plenty familiar with James Madison’s style of play: fast, physical and ready to bring the pressure.
On Sunday, the Phoenix met the challenge and finally flipped the script, winning 6-5. It snapped the Dukes’ 18-game conference win streak and marked just the fifth time ever that Elon has upset a ranked team.
“Going in against a team like JMU, it’s the mental game that’s the most important part,” Hexter said. “I thought our attack early on really handled the pressure and physicality of it really well.”
The Phoenix (2-0) came roaring out of the gate, scoring three goals in the first 10 minutes. That early scoring run, led by a pair of goals from junior Cate Mackel and a man-down tally from freshman Margaret Stephan, was a stark contrast to how Elon has started in recent years against the Dukes.
In those previous seven matchups, the Phoenix never scored more than eight goals total. Only once — in a 9-7 loss in 2016, the series’ closest meeting before this year — had they gone into halftime with the lead. They opened this time with a 5-0 run.
“You’ve got to have that next-play mentality against JMU, because they’re just going to keep coming at you. Whether stuff’s going to get called or not, you can’t worry about it, you’ve just got to play,” Hexter said. “I really thought our offense dominated early on, and I was impressed with how we were able to handle that zone [defense] and just keep our poise.”
The offense put Elon in control at the break, but its defense managed to keep it there for the rest of the game, even as the Dukes launched a comeback in the second half. James Madison scored two goals within the second frame’s first five minutes, but the Phoenix managed to get the ball back with a handful of caused turnovers and keep things in their favor.
Both goalies came up strong for their respective teams — redshirt junior Molly Dougherty had 14 saves for the Dukes, while her redshirt senior counterpart Paulina DiFatta had eight for Elon.
The Phoenix hadn’t held a conference opponent to five or fewer goals since 2017, and the Dukes hadn’t scored that few since a 2019 loss to a Maryland team that went on to win the NCAA championship.
“There’s not many games that you’re going to win 6-5 these days, so I was really proud of how our defense held to the plan,” Hexter said. “Our slides were good and clean, and we just did a good job putting pressure in the right spots at the right time.”
Sunday’s win was only Elon’s second game of the season. It opened with a 13-9 win over Campbell on Feb. 13, but then had a three-week break before the home matchup against James Madison. Its turnaround time this week is much tighter: The Phoenix face a Radford team still looking for its first win of the season Wednesday night.
Hexter has been around long enough to know the importance of not getting caught up in or after a big win. Elon started the 2017 season with victories over Campbell and then-No. 13 Virginia team, converting the momentum of that early confidence boost into the program’s first NCAA tournament appearance.
“The best teams are able to refocus, and in practice maintain that standard of intensity and bring that out to the next game,” he said. “That’s really the challenge right now.”