By Stacy Troiano
Pride senior midfielder Casey McGrath had a season total of two goals coming into Sunday’s game against Cornell University. She left the stadium with eight.
McGrath headed an offensive onslaught that led the 18th ranked Pride over the No. 17 Big Red of Cornell 13-8 Sunday afternoon at Shuart Stadium. Hofstra scored nine of the last 12 goals in the game en route to their second win of the season, evening their record at 2-2.
Senior midfielder Becky Thorn got the Pride on the board just over a minute into the game, and McGrath followed a minute later to put Hofstra up 2-0. But Cornell would come back to tie the game at 2 with goals by Katherine Simmons and Jessica Wiegand.
The teams would trade goals until Cornell took the lead 4-5 on a free position goal by Courtney Farrell with 6:27 left in the first half. But that would be the last lead the Big Red would see as the Pride offense took over from there.
Sophomore midfielder Lauren Whitcomb evened the score at 5 followed by McGrath’s third goal of the game. The three goal spurt was finished off by freshman attacker Ashley Jones in the final minute of the half, and junior goalie Maisie Osteen had two huge saves toward the end of the half to preserve the 7-5 lead going into the break.
At halftime, head coach Abby Morgan talked about slowing things down and staying in control of the game.
“We knew Cornell wasn’t going to roll over for us,” she said. “We had to come out hard, keep playing well and keep up the intensity.”
Cornell did come out strong in the second half, scoring two of the first three goals of the second session and closing the lead to 8-7. But the Pride rattled off five straight goals to take the lead for good at 13-7 with 12:21 left to play.
McGrath’s fifth and sixth goals of the game started the run, followed by sophomore attacker Alicia Recco, senior attacker Kim Hillier and freshman midfielder K’Leigh Vanaman, whose first career goal finished off the game-winning run.
McGrath was the only player to tally multiple goals in the contest as seven other players reached the net for the Pride. McGrath’s six goals came on just seven shots, and she made four of five free position shots in the game and also tallied one assist.
The defense for the Pride was strong as junior defender Kerrin Fraser and Whitcomb each had two ground balls, and Whitcomb and freshman midfielder Corrine Gandolfi tallied two caused turnovers each.
“Our defense got a lot of confidence after seeing the offense control the ball for so long and was able to get stops when we needed it,” Morgan said.
Osteen came up with a number of big saves in the game and finished with 8 saves in the net for the Pride, earning her second victory of the season. Hofstra also held a 15-8 advantage in draw controls, which Morgan said was key in controlling the game and getting more opportunities.
The Pride came into Sunday’s game at 1-2 after losing its home opener last Friday night to a solid team in 16th ranked University of Denver 14-5. After Friday’s game, Morgan said the team needed to not worry about the other team on the field and just play for themselves. She didn’t even go through a scouting report for Cornell.
“Before the game I just said that we were only playing Hofstra today,” Morgan said. “And we just came out and fought from the first whistle on. Everyone supported each other and look what happened.”
What happened was the Pride posed a great all around effort, playing well on both ends of the field to come away with a big win against a fellow nationally ranked team. Three of the Pride’s first four games have been against top 20 teams, and the trend continues this weekend at #20 Vanderbilt University and March 21st against Rutgers, a team that would be ranked 21st if the poll went that far.
The Pride travels to Tennessee to take on the Commodores of Vanderbilt on Sunday at noon. Their next home contest is set for April 1st against Drexel in their CAA opener.
Casey McGrath (25) has hit her stride, and that means trouble for her opponents.