Hormes powers HPU lacrosse past Winthrop
Apr. 11—HIGH POINT — For the second match in a row, Abby Hormes kept putting the ball in the cage for the High Point University women's lacrosse team.
Three days after scoring a school-record tying eight goals at Campbell, Hormes fired in seven and assisted on three others as the Panthers held off Winthrop's second-half rally and prevailed 17-11 in Big South action at Vert Stadium.
Hormes scored four of HPU's first seven goals, helping the Panthers lead 8-2 at halftime. In the second half, she scored to help turn back the Eagles on the two occasions when they got within four. The first of those helped put HPU up 11-4 and the other two were part of a 4-0 run that made it 15-7.
"Abby is seeing things very clearly on offense right now," HPU head coach Lyndsey Boswell said. "She's doing a good job of taking risks when it's time to take risks and settling the offense when it's time to do that. Her composure really has helped us find our place in the offensive end. I'm excited about the way she is playing right now."
Hormes scored unassisted three times. On two occasions, she tallied after taking long passes, and on two others, she took passes while cutting toward the cage.
She now had 41 goals on the season.
"These past two conference games, we expected it to be easier and a bigger separation in the score and it wasn't, so props to Campbell and Winthrop," Hormes said. "In times like that someone had to step up, so I did what I could."
Hormes' sister, Katie, and Rachel Foster added three goals. Kay Rosselli had two while Ashley Britton and Kaely Kyle contributed one each.
Kyle dished two assists. Britton, Foster, Mena Loescher and Brielle Prouty had one each.
High Point enjoyed an advantage in shots 41-35, ground balls 25-21, draw controls 22-20. The Panthers also went 3 for 6 on free position shots while Winthrop was 0 for 3.
Jill Rall made five saves while allowing two goals in the first half.
Sarah Zeto gave up nine goals and made six saves in the second.
HPU improves to 4-6 and 2-0 in the Big South while Winthrop drops to 4-7, 2-3.
"I'm happy with the second win in the conference," Boswell said.
"Winthrop's a tough team, very well coached. I think we had a lot of big contriubtors. I like where this team is headed."
Winthrop struck quickly to post the first goal of the match. High Point responded with the next four and eight of nine over the remainder of the half.
"We came out a little bit flat, maybe some of it emotions because it was Senior Day," Boswell said. "We gave up a soft goal to be honest. I think we just need to feel the game a little bit. We had a rund and turned it around quickly, so I'm happy with that."
Winthrop scored the first two goals of the second half, HPU then scored three to go up 11-4. Winthrop put together a run of three, HPU answered with four, and Winthrop scored three more to draw within 15-10 with 6:38 to go. With under four minutes to go, HPU scored twice to seal the victory.
"We answered back to today," Boswell said. "It's something we talked about. We're getting everybody's best game right now. We talked about that. People are going to score goals so we need a response to that."
One of Abby Hormes' assists came when she fed the ball into her sister, who then fired in her third goal with 11:18 remaining.
"I'm excited for her," Abby Hormes said "She's been waiting to get back into the midfield. She's been battling some injuries, came back and played some awesome defense but wanted to contribute more in the midfield. To see her score a goal against Campbell and get a hat trick today and then feed her on one, I've been waiting for that connection in a game.
"We've been doing it in practice but it was more exciting to do it in a game."
The Panthers go to Longwood on Wednesday and play host to Radford on Saturday.
