By Stacy Troiano

Among the changes that went on during last year’s turbulent season for the Pride was finding stable goaltending in the post-Becky Wachsberger era. Wachsberger is the all-time saves leader at Hofstra with 302, and she was All-CAA and All-Region in each of her last three years with the Pride. The platoon of Krysten Farriella and Krystal Robens was working for head coach Simon Riddiough, but when Farriella went down this past spring with a knee injury, the job lay firmly on Robens’ shoulders.

With a goals against average of .8 and a save percentage of .786, and as she picked up her sixth shutout of the season on Sunday, it seems Robens has risen to the challenge.

“She’s looking really sharp at the moment. She’s physically in top form. She’s a quiet leader, and the girls love her,” Riddiough said. “She’s really stepping up and doing the job we ask her to do, and that’s very appreciated from my perspective. When you’ve got a good goalkeeper, it makes us able to be competitive in all games.”

Robens, now a junior, was originally a field player, but made the switch to goalie early in her collegiate career. Last year was her first full season between the posts, and as she says, she learned from that and worked hard in the off-season to become the reliable presence the Pride needed in net.

“Over the summer I played for a WPSL team and had a goalie trainer, which I didn’t really have before, and he helped me fix a lot of bad habits I had,” Robens said. “I’ve definitely picked up my game. I’m playing better, I have more confidence, and I’m overall a better player than I was last year.”

Robens said one of the main people that has helped in her transition is Hofstra goalie coach Ed Schieferstein.

“He’s really helped me through the process. He did what he could in my first six months at goalie, but I didn’t really blossom until this summer,” Robens said. “But he was the reason why I was pushing myself. He was giving me belief that I could actually do it because he saw it in me.”

But Robens knows the Pride’s job isn’t done yet. She said she believes this team is good enough to go deep into the post-season, making drastic improvements from last season.

“We had individually good players last year, but we weren’t working well together; there wasn’t as much chemistry, which is what we do have now,” Robens said. “We want to head into the CAA tournament, win that, and get to the NCAAs and go past that first round. It’s going to be hard, but I think we can do it this year because we are a very good team.”