The Ohio State women’s lacrosse team (4-7, 0-3 B1G) steps out of conference to host Louisville (4-6, 1-4 ACC) Tuesday. The teams will meet at 4 p.m. in Columbus, Ohio, in Ohio State Lacrosse Stadium.
The game will be streamed through Big Ten Plus (HERE) and live stats will be available (HERE).
The Buckeyes will be playing in support of Morgan’s Message Tuesday. The organization strives to eliminate the stigma surrounding mental health within the student-athlete community and equalize the treatment of physical and mental health in athletics. They aim to expand the dialogue on mental health by normalizing conversations, empowering those who suffer in silence and supporting those who feel alone. Learn more at MorgansMessage.org.
Buckeyes vs. Cardinals
Ohio State is 6-3 all-time vs. Louisville, with a 3-0 mark in Columbus. The last game on Buckeye home turf was in 2014, a 12-11 Ohio State win.
The squads met in Louisville last season, where the Buckeyes prevailed, 13-12 in overtime. The Cardinals rallied with four goals in the fourth quarter to force the extra session. On the gamewinner, Nicole Ferrara found Lindsay Epstein in front of the cage and she scored with less than a second remaining to give the Buckeyes the win.
The Cards are 4-6 on the year and are 1-4 in ACC play. The squad played at No. 1 Syracuse Saturday, falling 17-5. Louisville has a 1-3 road record.
Louisville is scoring 9.7 goals a game and allowing 12.8 a contest. Nicole Perroni leads the team with 26 goals and 29 points and Kokoro Nakazawa is first with eight assists and second with 21 points.
Buckeye This and That
The Buckeyes are scoring 9.55 goals a game while allowing 11.64 per outing.
Ohio State last played Saturday, falling on the road at No. 20 Penn State, 13-3.
Jamie Lasda leads the Buckeyes with 18 assists and 34 points and is second with 16 goals. She had a career-high tying 13-game point streak end vs. the Nittany Lions. Lasda had four-plus points in each of the five games leading up to the contest at Penn State and has multiple points in nine games this season.
Nicole Ferrara is first on the squad with 25 goals and second with 32 points. She has four games with three-plus goals on the year and a point in all but one game, with nine multiple-point outings.
Jamie Level is third in goals and points for the Buckeyes, with 14 and 17, respectively, while playing in 10 games.
Annie Hargraves scored twice at Penn State, her first collegiate multi-goal game.
Level is first on the squad with 32 draw controls, followed by Caly O’Brien and Lasda with 31 each.
O’Brien had 10 draw controls in her first 38 games in the Scarlet and Gray and Lasda had nine her first two years. Level has two collegiate seasons with 50+ draw controls.
Chloe Johnson, who missed the first seven games and has had limited playing time her first four games back, had seven draw controls vs. Colorado. She is third in program history with 218 draw controls, three back of Katie Chase (2012-15) in second. Molly Wood holds the program record with 237 from 2015-18. Johnson set the Buckeye record with 124 last season, the first Ohio State player with more than 100 draw controls in a season.
Three freshmen have started for the Buckeyes this season. Casey Roberts has started each of the first 11, Zoe Coleman has 10 starts and Katie Kaucheck has been in the starting lineup the last seven outings.
Coleman had a point in eight of the first 11 games, including scoring twice vs. both Colorado and Johns Hopkins.
Roberts, with a 10-2-12 line, has a point in 8-of-11 games, with a goal in seven outings. Kaucheck has 14 ground balls to rank fifth on the squad.
Sarah Johnson, Ava Keethler and Emily Magalotti have started all 11 games on defense for the Buckeyes.
Regan Alexander started all 11 games in the cage for the Buckeyes and has 99 saves, with 10-plus in six outings. She has a team-best 27 ground balls, including a career-high 11 vs. Johns Hopkins, the second-most in a single game in the NCAA this season.
The Schedule Ahead
Ohio State will be off this upcoming weekend before a road game at Marquette April 4.
The Buckeyes will return to Big Ten play at No. 10 Maryland April 8, before the regular season home finale vs. No. 2 Northwestern at 6 p.m. April 15. The regular season wraps up at No. 25 Rutgers April 20.
Admission is free to all Ohio State women’s lacrosse regular season home games.
