Sept. 12, 2011
By Cassie Speno, GoPSUsports.com Student Staff Writer
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa.- On Sunday afternoon, the sixth-ranked Penn State field hockey team (3-3) defeated the Quinnipiac Bobcats 6-1. After Thursday's tough loss to Princeton, the Penn State Nittany Lions were able make adjustments and refocus with a quick turnaround.
Following Thursday's 4-3 set back, the Nittany Lions wanted to fix their passing game, play more solid defense and play as a unit. Captain Hannah Allison believes the team did a good job of that against the Bobcats.
"We wanted to keep up possession passing and play good defense and I think we picked that up today," said Allison. "I thought we came out as a team, a lot of other games have been individualized and I think today we played well as a unit and did a great job of finding each other."
The Nittany Lions made it evident that they were there to win from the opening whistle. With just 2:43 gone on the clock, Kelsey Amy fired in a penalty corner shot assisted by Sophomore Whitney Reddig. Sophomore Ashtin Klingler went on to put Penn State ahead by two with her first goal of the season with 15:53 played in the first half. Only 44 seconds later, Amy fired in her second shot of the game off of a breakaway.
Penn State finished the first half leading with a score of 5-1. Even though they were ahead by four, the Lions weren't going to let this lead slip away. Head coach Charlene Morett told the squad at half time that the team still needed to play with more effort.
"I told them we needed to be better," said Morett. "I think we have a tendency to get a little sloppy when we look at the score. I wanted to try to make our game better, especially our passing game because I didn't think we did a great job of that in the first half."
The Lions were able to make these adjustments even with various substitutions and lineup changes throughout the second half.
"Even with the substitutions we rolled throughout the game I thought that the people who stepped in really stepped up and did a nice job," said Morett. "Defensively I thought we did a much better job in the second half. We changed some people around. We put Brittany Grzywacz in the back, I like her back there and she did a great job of getting the ball out for us."
Going into this week the Penn State field hockey team will look to build off this 6-1 victory and continue the momentum throughout this week in practice. "Team" is a theme the Lions have emphasized strongly this season and they will look to continue that effort and improve upon it during training this week.
"I think we need to keep the field spread and get every one involved in the passing and attacking game as well as the defensive game," said Morett.
The Nittany Lions will be traveling this weekend with back-to-back road games. Saturday's match-up will take place in Durham, N.C. against the ninth- ranked Duke Blue Devils (3-1) at 1 p.m. The team will then travel to Harrisonburg, VA to take on the Virginia Commonwealth Rams at 1 p.m.
The team's next home contest will be on Thursday Sept. 22nd against Temple.
