It was a weekend of close calls and narrow defeats for the Cornell field hockey team, as it dropped a pair of 2-1 decisions. In a battle for early season Ivy League supremacy, Cornell was defeated by Princeton on Friday and then dropped a non-conference game to West Chester on Sunday. The pair of losses dropped the Red’s record to 5-4 overall and 3-1 in the Ivy League, placing them in second place in the conference.
With both Princeton and Cornell entering Friday’s game with 3-0 conference records, the game was expected, and proved to be, a battle throughout.
Princeton opened up the scoring eight minutes into the game when Paige Schmidt took a feed from her sister, Hillary Schmidt, and blasted it past the reach of sophomore goalie Lizzie Goldblatt. Eight minutes later, Schmidt scored her second goal of the game and the eventual game-winner, when she scored off of a penalty corner.
Princeton took 12 shots on the day and had 16 penalty corners, but was not able to score again, as Cornell’s defense held firm for the remainder of the first half and throughout the second. Cornell cut Princeton’s deficit in half with about nine minutes left in the game as sophomore Lizzie Auer followed up on her own rebound and put the ball past Princeton goalie Allison Nemeth. Subsequently, Cornell had a few scoring drives but could not find the net.
On Sunday, West Chester and Cornell were deadlocked through 50 minutes of play, before Mary Ellen Wells took a pass from Megan Glielmi and scored on freshman goalie Shannon Prescott, who was making her second start of the season. With five minutes left in the game, Glielmi scored to put the Golden Rams up by two.
Freshman Mandy Malzberg scored unassisted with 31 seconds left in the game to breathe a glimmer of life into the Cornell offense. However, West Chester then held the ball and ran out the clock to ice the game for its third consecutive victory.
Cornell will return to action next Sunday at home – after five consecutive road games – to take on Harvard (5-4, 1-1 Ivy).
Archived article by Jon Hausner
Sun Staff Writer