Despite being a late season non-conference tune-up game, the storylines were abundant in the Hofstra field hockey 7-1 victory over the Long Island University-Brooklyn Blackbirds on Sunday, Oct. 14.
Not only was it Senior Day for the Pride, as they congratulated Madison Sauve, Madison Reed and Samantha Schlegel, it was a match between two former high school teammates in Hofstra’s Madison Warfel and LIU Brooklyn’s Marisa Batista. Warfel responded to the occasion, playing very well and scoring two goals in the win, contributing to the Pride’s most goals scored in a game in nearly a year as they improved to 4-11 on the season.
The Pride started off aggressive, immediately pushing into the teeth of the Blackbirds’ defense within seconds and nearly getting a goal on their first chance. They would break through three minutes later as Sauve celebrated her day by scoring Hofstra’s first goal on a rebound.
The Pride nearly added onto their lead a minute later, but a goal scored on a penalty corner was waved dead. Instead, they scored minutes later after a nice assist on the baseline from Cami Larsson to Warfel for the first of her two goals.
In their last game against Northeastern, the biggest issue for Hofstra was penalty corners. They allowed 18 of them, which led to four of Northeastern’s five goals, effectively taking Hofstra out of the game. The Pride improved on this number, only allowing eight penalty corners, while not allowing a single goal from LIU Brooklyn. LIU Brooklyn’s only goal came from Jenna Chrabolowski when the game was already 7-0.
Another key to this game was making sure that Betty Bosma didn’t have a difficult game where she had to face plenty of shots. She made 12 saves in the game against Northwestern while being faced with plenty of shots from their aggressive offense. The Pride defense did a much better job at containing the Blackbirds’ offense today, as they only allowed 15 shots – eight of which were on goal. Head coach Kathy De Angelis applauded their “strong defensive structure,” which made it much tougher for LIU Brooklyn to make many advancements on the Pride.
While Bosma couldn’t get the first shutout of her career, she still got seven saves and her energetic style of play helped the defense in limiting the amount of close scoring chances the Blackbirds had. Her total for the season now sits at 114.
While the bulk of the goals scored by the Pride were from underclassmen, the seniors still held their own. Sauve had a goal and two assists, Reed added an assist and while Schlegel didn’t appear much in the stat sheet, her on-field presence on both ends of the field helped Hofstra win in their most complete performance yet.
Although it doesn’t help them in achieving their playoff hopes, it does serve as a confidence boost heading into the most important stretch of Colonial Athletic Association play. Even after their loss against Northeastern, Hofstra can still play their way into the playoffs with three games left in the season. However, those games come against some tough competition, including a Delaware team that is two years removed from winning the national championship.
The Pride hope to continue their winning ways at home against the James Madison University Dukes on Friday, Oct. 19. A win in this game is imperative if they hope to play in the postseason this year.
