COLLEGE PARK — Add Maryland women’s lacrosse to the growing list of ranked opponents to fall to James Madison.

The No. 15 Dukes broke a 6-6 tie at halftime with four consecutive goals and outscored the No. 3 Terps 7-2 in the second half en route to a 13-8 victory Saturday afternoon before a wind-swept crowd of 1,003 at the Field Hockey and Lacrosse Complex.

Redshirt sophomore attacker Isabella Peterson, a Sparks resident and Hereford graduate, secured game highs in both goals (five) and points (six) to power James Madison to its third straight win. Those victories have come at the expense of No. 19 Richmond on March 16, then-No. 14 Virginia and now Maryland.

“We had a lot of momentum coming into this game with Top 20 wins,” said Peterson, who has scored at least three goals in each of her last three starts and 14 goals over that same stretch.

“I think we really came together and took it one play at a time, which was our game plan.”

Junior attacker Libby May, another Sparks resident and Hereford graduate, paced the Terps (8-1) with three goals and one assist. But they stumbled in their

third game in eight days and fell from the ranks of the undefeated.

“We know that we’re a great team, so it was a little surprising,” May said of the outcome. “I think the more surprising thing is that it was uncharacteristic of us to not really focus on the little things as much as we didn’t tonight.

“But looking forward to next week, we know we’re not going to let this happen again because if we focus on the little things, the outcome will take care of itself.”

Graduate student defender Torie Barretta remained defiant that the setback would not define Maryland.

“It’s not the end of the world,” she said. “We lost. We don’t want to do that obviously, but it’s motivation now. We don’t want to have this feeling again, so we’ll come back stronger.”

Despite matching or besting the Dukes in many statistical categories, the Terps lagged in a few critical areas. Perhaps the biggest factor was a 1-for-8 performance on free-position shots, including a 0-for-4 showing from junior attacker Hannah Leubecker (three goals) and a 0-for-2 outing from sophomore midfielder Shannon Smith.

When graduate student attacker Aurora Cordingley converted her first and only free-position opportunity with 10 minutes, 12 seconds left in the fourth quarter, it was Maryland’s first in seven attempts.

“I think we saw that 8 meters can be the determining factor in a game,” coach Cathy Reese said. “We didn’t shoot well from it, and James Madison did a great job of defending it. That’s something I know I’ve talked a lot about this year.

“It needs to be an area that we get better in because they’re just like free throws. When you’re put on the line, you’ve got to make it count, and that’s something we need to get better at.”

The Dukes also employed a zone defense to contain Cordingley and give redshirt senior goalkeeper Molly Dougherty shots she could stop. Cordingley, a Johns Hopkins transfer who entered the game leading the country in points per game at 7.1, was limited to three points on one goal and two assists by a rotation of redshirt junior defenders Rachel Matey and Mairead Durkin that alternated between the zone and faceguarding, and Dougherty made a game-high 10 saves.

“We ran in and out of some faceguards with her to disrupt the flow,” said James Madison coach Shelley Klaes, who pointed out that the defense had given up two goals and two assists to Cordingley in last spring’s 9-6 win in the NCAA Tournament’s first round, when Cordingley was a member of Johns Hopkins.

Defensively, the Terps stuck to their roots of doubling the ballcarrier to induce turnovers and poor decisions. But when they paid that attention to Peterson, who entered the game leading the Dukes in goals (30) and points (36), she quickly distributed the ball to her teammates, who found second and third options to exploit the interior of Maryland’s defense.

“I never really let a double-team scare me,” Peterson said. “I think once you get scared, that’s when you get frantic and lose the ball.

“So I wanted to stay composed and move the ball to the back side.”