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JU drops close contest to No. 13 Vanderbilt

Written by Lee Roggenburg on . Posted in .
  Derner’s hat trick not enough against the Commodores Jacksonville, Fla.- Freshman attacker Morgan Derner tallied her second straight hat trick but it wasn’t enough as the JU women’s lacrosse team dropped a 12-9 decision to No. 13 Vanderbilt on Saturday afternoon at D.B. Milne Field. Junior attacker Kayleigh Hynes added two goals for JU. The Dolphins held a first-half lead against the highest-ranked opponent it’s ever faced in the two year-history of the programming before dropping to 3-3. Vanderbilt’s Katherine Denkler scored a game-high five goals to help the Commodores improve to 4-2. “I was very pleased with a solid effort against a highly ranked team,” head coach Mindy McCord said. “We did some positive things on attack and defense. We must focus on our fundamentals and become more detail oriented to beat top-15 teams.”     Derner continued a torrid start to her college career. The Lake Mary, Fla. native scored four goals in JU’s previous contest against Oregon and followed up with three goals and an assist versus Vanderbilt. Derner has seven goals and eight points in her past two games and leads the team with 11 goals and 13 points. Sophomore goalkeeper Karli Tobin did her best to keep JU competitive, posting a season-high 11 saves. Tobin’s previous high was nine save in the season-opening win over Cincinnati last month.  “Karli played her best game of the season by far,” McCord said. Derner and Hynes put JU ahead 2-0 just six minutes in and held the Commodores off the scoreboard for the first 14:30. The Commodores found a rhythm late in the half, scoring the last two goals off the opening half to take a 5-3 edge into the break. Denkler extended Vanderbilt’s edge out of halftime, scoring twice in 19 seconds to put the Commodores ahead, 7-3. But JU stormed back, coming as close as 7-6 thanks to three goals in a 5:24 stretch. Nikki Erdely, Kaitlin Stewart and Chelsea Watts logged consecutive unassisted goals to make it a one-goal game with 19:25 left. Stewart finished with one goal and an assist, giving the freshman middie three goals in her past two games. Fellow freshman Watts now has seven goals through her first five games. Vanderbilt then scored four straight goals to secure the win. Denkler scored twice in that stretch, including a free position strike. Hannah Clark also added a goal at 15:03 and a final one with 4 seconds remaining to cap her three-goal outing for the Commodores. JU will look to snap a two-game losing streak on Wednesday when it hosts Temple at 7 p.m. at the Ashley Sports Complex.

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