By Jerome Bailey, Staff Writer
The Hofstra field hockey team entered 2010 having made the postseason the past six years. This past weekend’s losses against Northeastern, 5-0, and Maine, 7-1, officially ended the Pride’s playoffs hopes, eliminating them from Colonial Athletic Association Tournament contention.
The two losses extended the Pride’s losing streak to three games and it finished the season winless on the road. Despite being eliminated, the team is focused on closing out the season strong.
“Obviously we are disappointed about the playoff elimination,” said Hofstra field hockey head coach Kathy De Angelis. “However, this upcoming weekend is very important for us. We want to finish on a strong note and improve our CAA record.”
This weekend the Pride will host the University of Delaware and Towson University, two CAA opponents, to close out its season.
Over the weekend both junior Genna Kovar and sophomore Krizia Layne did not play. The two suffered concussions and Kovar broke her hand in practice. Kovar had surgery on her hand on Oct. 25. Junior Arielle Williams helped make up for some of the losses, scoring the Pride’s only goal of the weekend. The goal is her team leading twelfth of the year.
“We have had a problem of staying healthy this year,” De Angelis said.
“Injuries certainly can factor in to being a strong team. However, I was proud that Arielle stepped up this weekend, and carried the team. She set up on the attack and had a great goal against Maine.”
On Friday against Northeastern, the Pride was outshot 27-4, taking all four shots in the second half. Northeastern had six penalty corners to the Pride’s one.
“In both games this weekend we had a difficult time generating attack offensively. We were not able to produce any offensive threats,” said De Angelis.
Another problem for the Pride was defense. The team gave up a combined 12 goals in the two games. De Angelis tried substituting different goalies throughout the weekend.
Against Northeastern, junior goalie Meredith Golden replaced junior Amanda Heyde at halftime. Heyde gave up three first half goals and Golden allowed two in the second half.
Against Maine, De Angelis started freshman Kaitlyn De Turo. De Turo allowed four first half goals and a fifth in the second half. With 20 minutes left in the second half Heyde replaced De Turo. Heyde finished the game and allowed two goals.
“Goalkeeping is a problem for us right now,” De Angelis said. “We are looking for strong goal keeping this weekend. So this week in practice we are going to see which goalkeeper we go with. As of now, the starting goalie this weekend is up in the air.”
The Pride is now focused on winning its last two games, both at home, but road games are a concern for this offseason.
“We know we struggled on the road and hopefully we learn from it next year when we open the year on the road against University of Connecticut and Stanford,” said De Angelis.
Junior Arielle Williams (10), junior Genna Kovar (24), freshman Dieke ter Weel (9), sophomore Micaela Gallagher (16) (Michaela Papa/The Chronicle)
