By Amanda Brody
After losing two devastating shut outs on the road last weekend against William & Mary and No. 3 Old Dominion, Hofstra field hockey looks forward to some home cooking to end the regular season on a positive note.
The playoffs are right around the corner and the top six teams earn the right to play. Currently, Hofstra is ranked third in the conference with a 3-3 record, but the fourth, fifth and sixth place teams are not far behind. Sixth place Delaware has a record of 3-4, and a Blue Hen win paired with a Hofstra win and loss will tie the Pride with Delaware, who holds the tiebreaker.
“These coming games are absolutely invaluable to us to number one make sure we get into the tournament and then number two [to see] where we are seated in the tournament,” head coach Kathy De Angelis said.
Hofstra lost its first game this weekend on Friday night, a 1-0 defeat to William & Mary that snapped the Pride’s five-game win streak. Tribe senior Becky Van Dee scored the game’s only goal nine minutes into the first half.
“We had great opportunities [to score] and William & Mary’s goalkeeper came up with some very key saves,” De Angelis said. “You can walk away from a game like that knowing that it could have gone either way very easily.”
The Pride then traveled to Norfolk, Va., to face Old Dominion on Sunday afternoon. In the first half, Hofstra played a very defensive game, only allowing one goal to Jo Ann van Aswegen with five minutes to go.
But the second half took a dramatic turn, as Old Dominion scored five more goals to shut the Pride out. Unlike the usual Pride team that takes many shots throughout the game, this time Hofstra was emphatically out shot, 33-5.
Hofstra’s goalkeeper Jessica Cowperthwait had a stellar 19 saves in the game before she was ejected in the second half.
“If it wasn’t for her [Cowperthwait] having such an outstanding game, the score could have reflected in an even further direction,” De Angelis said.
The team came well prepared to face Old Dominion, but in these kinds of situations the team must remain disciplined and keep its composure under pressure.
“There was a mental breakdown for us in ability to handle what was going on in the game and there was frustrations with the officiating,” De Angelis said. “And that is what we did not do. We cannot control the officiating, we’re never going to be able to control the officiating and we have to go into this weekend knowing that we still cannot control what the officials do.”
Although the Pride only took five shots, the team had many opportunities to score in the second half. However, with Cowperthwait out, the defense wasn’t nearly as strong.
“Right now we really want to put this weekend behind us and we will be onward and upward and we’re looking forward to our very last weekend of the season, and really excited that we’re playing at home,” De Angelis said.