The skies cleared up and the Big Red women’s field hockey team (8-5 overall, 3-2 Ivy) hit the turf ready to play last night, defeating Bucknell (8-9) by a score of 2-1.
The win was much-needed after the Red’s tough weekend loss to Brown. Last night was a chance for Cornell to leave the bitter loss behind and to show clean defense and a powerful attack.
The Big Red did just that as it outshot Bucknell 16-4, tallied nine
penalty corners and did not allow any defensive corners. This is the first time all season that Cornell has held the opposition to zero corner opportunities.
“I thought we played really well. [Head coach Michelle Tambroni] is really pleased and everyone on the team felt really good coming out of that game. We just pulled everything together, we got our defense going, our offense was working and we got a lot of corners. We had the momentum the entire game,” senior co-captain Amy Galebach said of last night’s victory.
“Today was so great because we finally played our game for 70 minutes. We knew that we were never going to lose, we were all on the same page and everyone played really well,” senior co-captain Kate McMahon added.
While leading scorer sophomore forward Anna Starkey was back on the field last night, junior back Melissa Wannop was sidelined because of illness. Sophomore back Laura Barndt stepped in and played the entire game.
“Laura started to fill in for Melissa and she did a great job at right back the entire game,” said Galebach. Cornell’s offense pressed throughout the game, but nothing was decided until the second half. All the scoring came in the last ten minutes of the match and Bucknell jumped ahead with a shifty goal at the 61:21 mark.
For the first time this season, the Big Red offense did not let up after the opposition pulled ahead. About three minutes after the Bison goal, Cornell’s offense rallied and freshman midfielder Karleigh Burns shot in the tying goal with a penalty stroke.
The Big Red was strong for the remainder of play and less than two minutes after the Red’s first goal, Galebach found the net for the game winner. For her second career goal, Galebach was assisted by McMahon and sophomore back Sarah Nordstrom on the penalty corner.
Defense was solid throughout the game and senior goalkeeper Maureen Sullivan only needed to make one save for the win.
“It was just an all-around great game. We played as a team and were never separated. Defense and offense really worked together to create a cohesive attack against Bucknell,” commented Galebach.
The team’s goal for the end of the season is to chip away and win the last three games. Last night, the momentum started to pick up.
“It was a great way to go into the last three games. We achieved our goal,” said McMahon. “No one got down when Bucknell scored and we came back from a one-goal deficit to win the game.
“Everyone is really fired up to play the last three games,” she continued. “We all want to play our way and we want the wins so that we can finish with a great season.”
Archived article by Kelli Larsen