Michigan
No. 8 Johns Hopkins women’s lacrosse coughs up four-goal halftime lead in 13-9 loss to No. 6 Michigan
This one might sting for Johns Hopkins women’s lacrosse.
After sprinting to a four-goal advantage by halftime, the No. 8 Blue Jays scored just once in the second half and wilted in a 13-9 loss to No. 6 Michigan in a critical Big Ten tilt Sunday afternoon before an announced 400 at Homewood Field.
For the second straight game and the third time this spring, Johns Hopkins failed to turn a multiple-goal lead into victory. It led 8-6 in the second quarter against No. 7 Loyola Maryland before the Greyhounds rallied for a 17-14 win on Feb. 21.
The Blue Jays scored the first three goals against No. 4 Maryland, but the Terps roared back for a 13-8 triumph on Wednesday night. Coach Tim McCormack acknowledged the disappointment in watching the team let another game slip through its grasp.
“It’s frustrating to be on the sideline when that happens or whatever the case is,” he said. “We’ll just go back to the drawing board and continue to keep playing our game and keep it focused on us and just do what we do.”
Sunday’s loss might be even more exasperating considering how differently Johns Hopkins (10-5, 2-3 Big Ten) fared in the first and second halves. In the game’s opening 30 minutes, the Blue Jays outshot the Wolverines, 17-7, controlled nine of 13 draws, and earned a 10-6 advantage in ground balls en route to enjoying an 8-4 lead at halftime.
The second half was an exercise in how quickly things turned. Michigan scored all four goals of the third quarter and the first two of the fourth for a 6-0 run in a 16:38 stretch. The burst was fueled by back-to-back goals from senior midfielder Ava Class in a 1:40 span and capped by goals from junior attackers Jane Fetterolf and Kaylee Dyer 28 seconds apart.
Junior attacker Jill Smith paced the Wolverines (14-1, 4-1) with game highs in both goals (five) and points (six). She said she and her teammates needed time to adjust to how aggressive the Blue Jays defense played.
“They were pressuring us a little bit more than we thought they would,” said Smith, who raised her career goal total to 125 and eclipsed Kim Coughlan’s school record of 124 goals from 2014 to 2017. “In the first half, that shocked us a little bit, and we were a little passive with that. But in the second half, we knew that we could beat the first one, draw a slide, pass it on, and I think that momentum helped us the whole half, and obviously, it showed in the score. We weren’t looking for the first shot, which really helped us get to those second layers.”
By the time graduate student midfielder Bailey Cheetham converted a free-position opportunity from the left side of the arc early in the fourth quarter, Johns Hopkins had gone 23:26 without finding the net. And even after drawing within 10-9 at that point, Michigan scored three unanswered goals to cement the victory.
Wolverines coach Hannah Nielsen said she thought the defense didn’t make too many changes between the two halves.
“I thought the defense was playing well in the first half, but they had to play too much defense,” she said. “We weren’t winning draws, and I think they scored three man-up goals. So I thought we were playing OK defensively. They just got the ball on the ground a little bit more. Hopkins is insanely good with the ball movement and their stick skills. We just put the ball on the ground a little bit more, and our goalie made some great saves.”
That goalie, junior Erin O’Grady, finished with eight saves, including two as the Blue Jays tried to mount a comeback in the final frame. She stoned junior attacker Ashley Mackin on a point-blank attempt and then made a stick save against graduate student attacker Maeve Barker on a free-position chance from the right side of the arc.
“The kid made a couple of good saves, and sometimes that can get you thinking a little bit about your next shot,” McCormack said. “It wasn’t a tremendous change or anything like that, but it just gets you and there might be a little bit of a snowball effect. But that can’t change. We’ve got to continue to do what we do, focus on that, and play for 60.”
Cheetham and senior midfielder Abbey Hurlbrink, a Towson resident and Bryn Mawr graduate, each had two goals and two assists for Johns Hopkins, and graduate student midfielder Jennifer Barry controlled a game-high eight draws. But the Blue Jays now find themselves in a tense situation.
Johns Hopkins must travel and defeat No. 24 Penn State (8-6, 3-2) on Thursday night to earn the No. 4 seed and earn the right to host a Big Ten Tournament quarterfinal against the Nittany Lions again. A loss would send the Blue Jays on the road against either Maryland (11-4, 4-2), Michigan or Penn State in a quarterfinal.
As intriguing as those scenarios might be, McCormack said the team can’t harp on the what-ifs.
“We just take what’s right in front of us,” he said. “We’re going to focus on getting ourselves prepared each and every day. We’re going to focus on getting back to playing Blue Jay lacrosse and focus on trying to prevent runs and just keep putting one foot in front of the other.”
No. 8 Johns Hopkins at No. 24 Penn State
Thursday, 5:30 p.m.
Lansing — Jocelyn Benson, the front runner for the Democratic Party’s nomination for governor, said she believes her work in eight years as secretary of state will help convince voters to promote her this fall.
On Sunday, during a convention in Detroit, Democrats will pick a new secretary of state nominee. And on Thursday, Benson’s campaign for governor submitted about 30,000 petition signatures to get her name on the Aug. 4 primary ballot.
Amid those key moments in the 2026 election cycle, Benson, a former law school dean, sat down Thursday afternoon for an interview with The Detroit News about her time as secretary of state.
“I think that’s what people are looking for: A government that saves them time, saves them money and makes their life easier,” Benson contended. “I’ve done that as secretary of state, and I’ll do that as governor.”
The following interview was edited for length and clarity.
Question: You just dropped off your signatures this weekend. The Democrats are going to be gathering to nominate a new person for secretary of state. I was just looking over your campaign promises from 2017, do you feel like you hit them?
Benson: I had two goals when I came into office: wait times down and voter turnout up. And we did both, and I’m really proud of that.
When I started, we did a strategic planning session every January, and during our first strategic planning session in 2019, we filled the whiteboard on every wall in the office. And in our most recent one, the final one, we had just sort of one, just one little to-do list item left, which was really gratifying. Because we have not just increased turnout, but we’ve transformed our elections, eliminated gerrymandering, implemented the state’s first-ever citizens redistricting commission, which was no easy task, and then also implemented a number of new election procedures and options, educated voters about them and took Michigan’s elections from being ranked 31st in the country to No. 2.
We also did that while reducing those wait times (in Secretary of State offices), transforming our customer service experience. … Wait times are consistently 20 minutes or less, which was my No. 1 campaign goal.
Q: What were some of the strategies you used to get the wait times down for people?
A: No. 1, we listened to our employees, and No. 2, we collected data about what wasn’t working. You can’t fix what you can’t measure. And No. 3, we actually went around the country and looked at what states that actually had low wait times were doing. There weren’t many, but there were a few. Indiana and Illinois, had some interesting things that they did, and we took best practices that were working in other states and replicated them here.
But that first piece was key, listening to our employees. Early on in the process, we brought everyone in, all the branch office directors. I was expecting a daylong retreat where we would be discussing ideas, and I sat down with the director of branch office services. He had a whole PowerPoint presentation that went through everything we needed to do, from filling 900 vacant positions that were just vacant and not filled, to creating internally this opportunity for people to schedule the visit ahead of time.
We didn’t pay someone else to build that. That was built by our employees.
Q: When you ran in 2018, one of the big things you were talking about was election security. Do you feel like you’ve achieved that: improving election security? And what do you think about more people probably having faith in the results of elections then than they do now?
A: I am really proud of the fact that in this era of misinformation, we were able to protect our elections and ensure they remained secure.
While withstanding this unprecedented scrutiny and an unprecedented level of frivolous lawsuits, sham legislative hearings and falsehoods spread about our elections in the eye of the storm, we not only met the moment, but we built a better election system through it. That’s evidenced by the fact that we now have choices on how to vote in our state, we’ve modernized how you can register to vote and have increased the registration numbers we have.
Q: If one of these current candidates for secretary of state came to you and said, “I believe that the election is secure and everything is fine, but obviously there’s a lot of voters who don’t. How do we improve that?” What would you say to them?
A: Transparency is our friend.
Q: Just continue to open the process up as much as possible?
A: Well, the facts are on our side. The process is secure. So one of the most important things we need to do first is just continue to give people the tools that they need to get their questions answered and work with folks across the aisle, like we worked with Sen. Ed McBroom in 2021 to invite them into the process as well as answer questions that they have, while also, of course, maintaining any necessary confidence or security about the information that we’re providing.
But the through line is just transparency.
Q: What do you say to some of your opponents who will say, “Yeah, you decreased wait times. But what about the campaign finance website?” It’s not functioning, as they would hope it would.
A: Well, it’s certainly better than what we’ve had in the past. I think it’s important to remember that when I first ran for office, one of the things I heard most on the trail was actually, when are you going to get rid of MERTS (the former campaign finance disclosure system)?
Q: But that’s from people who are on the back end of it?
A: Right. Yeah. So I didn’t want to leave office without taking on that behemoth, knowing that it wasn’t going to be a smooth process, but it’s a necessary one if we were actually going to have a more transparent system, which I would argue also is something that the next secretary of state really needs to lean into more: getting money out of politics. I’ll be an ally for that as governor.
But when it comes to MITN and that process, one, what it really underscores is that I’m not afraid to take on big behemoths that others, frankly, past secretaries of state, refused to do, because it was too hard. And it does invite criticism. Whenever you try to transform a massive system that’s broken, yes, there are going to be hiccups along the way.
Q: Do you think voters are interested in that message: “I’ve improved these systems. I’m in government. I’ve succeeded in government. I can make it work.” Or are they looking for someone to just change everything?
A: People see a broken system that needs fixing, and they know I have transformed and fixed a system that every single one of our residents has interacted with. The other day, I was picking up food for my son and husband, and walking out with bags of food, and this gentleman in a pickup truck pulled up next to me in the parking lot and said, “Excuse me, are you the secretary of state?”
I was like, “I am.” And he said, “You know, I’m not political or anything. But I just was driving down this road the other day and realized when I passed the secretary of state’s office that it’s been years since I’ve had to go in there. Thank you for everything you’ve done to make that possible for me.” And I said, “Yeah, now imagine if all of government worked that well.”
Q: Do you think all three of the Democratic candidates running for secretary of state would be a good secretary of state? I know you’re not endorsing.
A: I’m committed to working with whoever comes through the convention and making sure they’re prepared to build on what we’ve done and achieve even more success.
cmauger@detroitnews.com
Before-and-after images of homes on Black Lake near Onaway provide perspectives on how the community was affected by April flooding.
Snowmelt and rain have stressed dams and caused lakes to flood in northern Michigan.
The Cheboygan County Sheriff’s Office shared on social media photos and videos that the agency captured of Cheboygan County floods on Friday, April 17 from both the ground and air.
Deputies “observed a level of destruction that simply cannot be understood from ground level,” the sheriff’s office said in the post.
Google Maps images taken from two locations on Black Lake in 2024, compared with the Friday images, show how the floodwater has changed the landscape.
On North Black River Road and Taylor Road, the water has overflowed to North Black River Road.
In the 400 block of South Black River Road, water has also flooded homes and lakeside property.
“Black Lake, Black River, Cheboygan River, Burt Lake, Mullet Lake, the Sturgeon River − and nearly every waterway in the county have overflowed beyond their banks, swallowing docks, roads, yards, and in far too many cases, homes,” the sheriff’s office post said. “What should be familiar shorelines are now unrecognizable expanses of water.”
“Our hearts are with every family affected by this flooding,” Cheboygan County Sheriff Todd Ross said in the post. “We know many of you are facing significant damage to your homes and property, and the emotional toll that comes with it. Please know you are not alone. We are working around the clock with our partners to ensure safety, provide support, and begin the process of recovery. Stay strong, stay connected, and don’t hesitate to reach out for help, we will get through this together.”
Nearby, the UAW Black Lake Conference Center shared images on social media of floodwater threatening its Old Lodge.
The conference center is located at 2000 Maxon Road in Waverly Township.
The Cheboygan County Road Commission and the Cheboygan County Office of Emergency Management closed the bridge at Five Mile Point Road on Saturday, April 18 due to significant road washout in the area of South Black River Road and Red Bridge Road.
The sheriff’s office had encouraged residents in parts of the area to evacuate earlier in the week and said Saturday it had completed evacuation efforts on the west side of the lake.
TEXAS TOWNSHIP, Mich. — A 20-year-old Kalamazoo man is dead after crashing his vehicle into a tree Friday evening in Texas Township, according to Michigan State Police (MSP).
It happened on South 3rd Street and West PQ Avenue around 6:50 p.m., troopers said.
While he was driving in a no-passing zone, the Kalamazoo man swerved off the road to avoid an oncoming vehicle and subsequently crashed into the tree, according to MSP.
The 20-year-old died at the scene. A passenger was hurt, but police said their injuries were non-life threatening.
Troopers do not believe alcohol or drugs were a factor, and the two were reportedly wearing seatbelts.
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This incident remains under investigation by MSP.
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