Vanderbilt players entered their matchup against then-No. 12 Denver on Sunday with sour tastes in their mouths.

Five days earlier, the Commodores had taken Louisville to the wire, coming within one of the Cardinals’ lead with just over two minutes to play. They ultimately fell short in a 15-13 defeat. They’d come close to Boston College (which began 2020 at No. 5) earlier in the season, too, coming again within one goal of the Eagles before suffering a 15-12 loss.

They were determined not to let that happen a third time, and against the Pioneers, it didn’t. Vanderbilt (4-2) took down Denver (4-1) in a 14-13 upset for the program’s first win over an opponent ranked that highly in six years.

“We felt like the last few games we’ve played, we’ve been in it, and we’ve been making mistakes that really cost us a couple games leading up to [Denver],” coach Beth Hewitt said this week. “We needed to focus on us and not worry too much about what the other team’s doing. Because if we play our best game, we really feel like we can hang with anybody.”

Junior attacker Sophie Furlong and sophomore midfielder Bri Gross combined for seven goals in the winning effort. Vanderbilt trailed by four midway through the second half but rallied late and found a game-winning goal from Gross with just over three minutes remaining that put it away.

Bri Gross with the game-winner as @VandyLacrosse defeats No. 12 Denver 14-13, the Commodores' first win over a nationally ranked opponent since 2014. pic.twitter.com/7ftjwFgFbQ

— US Lacrosse Magazine (@USLacrosseMag) March 1, 2020

It was one of the biggest upsets of the weekend in the women’s lacrosse world, but it was even more important to a program coming off its first 10-win season in nine years and looking to make the jump to the next level.

“Part of why we made the schedule we made this year was we felt we kind of learned to win again [in 2019],” Hewitt said. “We felt like now was the time to compete with the top-10 and top-15 teams, and so we felt like if we could play them each week, then we’re going to learn to be that level of program.”

In the next eight days, Vanderbilt will face three teams either in the Nike/US Lacrosse Division I Women’s Top 20 or receiving consideration — No. 13 Michigan (4-1) on Wednesday, Penn State (4-1) on Sunday and No. 2 Notre Dame (5-0) on March 11.

They’ll have a home-field advantage for all three of those games — the Vanderbilt campus and facilities were fortunately spared from the damage of Tuesday’s tornadoes in Nashville, Hewitt said. That won’t make facing that stretch of teams any easier, but the Commodores are up for the challenge.

“To be the best, you’ve got to play the best,” Hewitt said. “It’s a tough stretch for sure, but regardless, it’s going to set us up for conference play and put us in a position where we want to be playing our best lacrosse in April when it matters.”

IVY AUTHORITY

It’s been a pretty good start to the season for the top three teams in the Ivy League.

Dartmouth, Penn and Princeton all appeared in this week’s Nike/US Lacrosse Division I Women’s Top 20, giving the Ivy the second-most teams in the rankings (tied with the Big Ten). Those three squads are a combined 11-1, with the lone loss being the Tigers’ 12-10 defeat to Virginia on Feb. 22.

The Quakers (4-0) are ranked No. 7, fresh off an 11-5 toppling of Yale and now turning forward to a Saturday matchup against No. 3 Loyola in Philadelphia. The Tigers (3-1) managed to quiet a hot Villanova team in an 18-13 win last Wednesday and will take on No. 6 Stony Brook on the road on Sunday.

But the biggest Ivy success story so far might be Dartmouth, which hopped four spots to No. 11 in this week’s rankings and is sure to move up some more after its big-time 13-9 upset of No. 3 Florida on Tuesday in Hanover.

The Big Green (4-0) are finding their groove under first-year head coach Alex Frank, a three-time All-American player at Northwestern and a former assistant at Boston College and Colorado. Senior Katie Bourque had already earned an accolade as the US Lacrosse Player of the Week with a career-high six goals in the Big Green’s overtime win over Brown and followed it up with four scores against the Gators.

Dartmouth will face New Hampshire and Albany in its next two games before a March 18 meeting with No. 17 Boston College.

OLD LINE STATE SHOWDOWN

The stage is set for an Old Line State showdown in College Park Wednesday night. Navy (2-2) and No. 15 Maryland (1-3) will face off for just the third time in history and the first time in the regular season.

There’ll be plenty of cross-team connections on each sideline. For starters, Midshipmen coach Cindy Timchal was in charge of the Terrapins for 16 seasons from 1991 to 2006, winning eight national championships along the way and even coaching current Maryland coach Cathy Reese from 1995 to 1998. Reese later served as an assistant under Timchal from 1991 to 2003.

Seventeen years later, there’s another Terrapin on Timchal’s coaching staff, and she’s 2019 national champion and Tewaaraton Award winner Megan Taylor. The legendary Maryland goalie joined the Navy coaching ranks as a volunteer assistant for this season and has helped coach Midshipmen goalie Abby Young to a Patriot League-leading 11.50 saves per game.

The Terrapins enter this one coming off a 10-5 loss to No. 6 Syracuse and hope to avoid their first four-game losing streak since 1975. Navy fell out of the Nike/US Lacrosse Division I Women’s Top 20 after a home defeat to unranked Villanova on Feb. 22, and this game against Maryland will be its first in 10 days.

NUMBERS OF NOTE

7

Goals scored by senior midfielder Alyssa Parrella in No. 20 Hofstra’s win over Johns Hopkins on Tuesday. Parrella found the net four times in the second half, with her final score coming less than a minute into the overtime period to break a 14-14 deadlock and lift the Pride (4-1) over the Blue Jays (3-3). The Long Island native entered this season already ranking as the program’s all-time leader in goals and points, and with 22 goals on the year so far, is showing no signs of slowing down. 

Kenny DeJohn recently profiled Parrella in the March 2020 edition of US Lacrosse Magazine. You can read that story here.

13.2

Saves per game averaged by Penn State sophomore goalie Taylor Suplee. The Nittany Lions keeper recorded 11 first-half saves against No. 3 Loyola’s high-strung offense in a 22-12 defeat to the Greyhounds last weekend, pushing her into a tie for second-place for the nation’s best save percentage. She’ll be put to the test again on Wednesday when Penn State travels south to take on No. 19 James Madison (3-1).

6

Teams with three or more players on the first round of the Tewaaraton Award watch list released last Thursday. No. 15 Maryland and No. 1 North Carolina led the way with four players each, while No. 2 Notre Dame, No. 14 Princeton and No. 9 Northwestern each had three players named to the list.