Madison Hughes scored the lone goal of the night in the 62nd minute to lift Youngstown State to a 1-0 win over Longwood in front of a capacity crowd of nearly 2,000 fans at the Longwood Athletics Complex.

Playing in front of nearly half of Longwood’s undergraduate student body that filled the stadium as part of the university’s Greatest Athletics March Ever event, Hughes silenced the crowd with a dribbler through traffic to give Youngstown State (2-0-0) the lead in a physical, defensive battle that saw three yellow cards and only four total shots on goal.

Longwood (1-1-0) responded to Hughes’ go-ahead goal by forcing three corner kicks and firing two more shots in the final 16 minutes, but Youngstown State goalkeeper Katie Montgomery fended off the late attempts and survived a crossbar shot from Longwood senior Meghan Magee with under five minutes to play.

The 1-0 loss marks the first time since Oct. 29, 2013 that the Lancers were shut out at home. “We need to redeem ourselves after a game like that,” said Longwood head coach Todd Dyer. “We were totally out of character in terms of how we train and how we want to play. With that performance we deserve the result we got.”

The clean sheet for Montgomery was her second straight and extended a string of defensive dominance from the Penguins who have given up just one shot on goal in their first two games. Behind a backfield trio of 90-minute ironwomen Hughes, Shannon Leghart and Marissa Martin, Youngstown State slowed down a Longwood offense that hammered eight shots on goal two days prior in Friday’s 2-0 win over American.

Longwood outshot Youngstown State 11-10, but the Penguins made up for a two-shot first half by sending eight at Longwood’s goal in the second half.

Longwood’s veteran defensive unit withstood all but one of those, but it was enough to stand after Montgomery blocked Jayden Metzger four minutes later and Magee’s rocket from inside the box was just inches too high and deflected off the crossbar.

After playing two games in three days, Longwood will have one week to recover and prepare for the finale of its three-game, season-opening homestand. That matchup will pit the Lancers against Howard at 3 p.m. Sunday at the Athletics Complex in the final home game before five straight matchups on the road.