HARRISONBURG — With a little less than six minutes left in Saturday’s home-opening victory against High Point, James Madison senior attacker Hanna Haven fired a shot past Panthers goalie Jill Rall to give the defending NCAA champion Dukes a six-goal lead.
Even in lacrosse, where points can come in bunches, Haven’s fourth goal of the day put the game away for JMU, which closed out a 12-5 victory, its third straight, to improve to 3-1. This may not be the same Dukes team that went all the way last spring, but JMU wanted to make it clear anyone writing it off after the season-opening blowout loss to North Carolina would be making a mistake.
“With our ball movement, we are showing we are just as balanced as an offense as we were last year,” JMU coach Shelley Klaes-Bawcombe said. “It’s just different personnel. We love being able to have three attackers on the crease who can come at these zone defenses we are seeing.”
Haven, who also had four assists to finish with a career-high eight points, has stepped into a leadership role in the Dukes revamped attack unit. A year ago, JMU featured three dynamic seniors at attack.Kristen Gaudian’s 80 goals made her a finalist for the Tewaaraton Award given to the national player of the year and Katie Kerrigan set a school record with 60 assists. Both were lost to graduation along with Morgan Hardt, who contributed 30 goals.
Haven started alongside them last season and Maddie McDaniel was also a part time starter, both are back to lead an attacking unit that takes a different approach and, since the UNC game, has been similarly effective.
With Kerrigan, a standout point guard in high school basketball, putting those skills to use as a creator with a lacrosse stick, JMU’s other offensive players often found themselves in catch-and-shoot situations.
This season, with Haven and McDaniel joined by junior Logan Brennan and sophomore Katie Checkosksy on the first line, these Dukes are adept at the art of dodging, the lacrosse term for a one-on-one move to slip past a defender.
“We kind of switched our set up on attack this year, just to play to everyone’s strengths,” Haven said. “We have a lot of great dodgers this year, which is something we didn’t really have last year. So we try to take advantage of that and incorporate that into our game.”
Haven has 10 goals and 11 assists through four games while Brennan has been an explosive shooter at times, notching 13 goals.
But perhaps the biggest improvement since the opener has been on the draw control. North Carolina won 22 of 27 draws against the Dukes, who have steadily gotten better in that category and won the draw battle each of the past two games. Against High Point, the Dukes controlled 15 of 19.
McDaniel leads JMU with 22 draw controls.
“The draw is huge because if you don’t have the ball, you can’t score,” McDaniel said. “The draw is something we’ve really been focusing on and we’ve gotten a whole lot better. That’s big for me, obviously, because I do them, but the girls on the circle and I have gotten more used to each other and have a better understanding of what I’m going to do, and that’s really helped us.”
JMU returns Friday to Sentara Park to take on Canisius at 5 p.m.
