After a strong second-place showing in the Ivy League last season, the field hockey team is eager to showcase its talent as it heads into another highly competitive year. The team is heavily eying the Ivy crown that it was so close to attaining last season, but the women want to make sure they take this season one game at a time.
“Our goal on any given day is to go out there and give it our best effort,” said head coach Donna Hornibrook. “Our expectations from day one are to improve each game and if we are able to do that, then we will be a good team this year.”
Added to the squad this year is a talented incoming freshmen class, which has already made an impact so far this season. Leading the way is freshman Kate Thompson, who scored a crucial goal in the team’s 2-0 victory over Lafayette on Sept. 2, paving her way to Ivy League Rookie of the Week honors. The rest of the incoming class include freshmen Mattie Prodanovic, Catie De Stio, Sara Sanders, Stephanie Sanders and Elizabeth Schovee.
The Red is lead by junior co-captain Belen Martinez and senior co-captain Katie Bradshaw. Both captains have shown tremendous leadership throughout the season and are looking forward to remainder of the year.
Martinez recently assisted on both goals for the Red against Penn on Sept. 15, but her efforts were not enough as the Red eventually fell to the Quakers 3-2.
Cornell started off the 2007 season with three straight victories over Lehigh, Lafayette and Columbia, respectively. Unfortunately, the team was not able to keep the momentum in the right direction as it fell to Penn and Rutgers in two back-to-back overtime games last week.
“It’s unfortunate that we lost in overtime but there is a lot of chance in those games,” said senior co-captain Katie Bradshaw. “We played well and now we’re excited about moving forward and playing the rest of the season.”
The team believes it can bounce back from those two emotional losses but the women also acknowledge that they have some skills — such as ball movement and tackling — to work on.
“If we are able to improve on ball movement, tackling and getting into the box then that will help us rebound after this game and improve in all of our games during the season,” Bradshaw said.
The Red coach agreed with the senior.
“Our ball movement definitely needs to get quicker,” Hornibrook said. “We also need to make sure that we finish well. We had the lead with 10 minutes to go against Penn, but we weren’t able to finish the job. Right now that’s really what we need to work on. But like I said before, we are going to look at one game at a time and keep trying to improve during each one.”
The two overtime losses dropped the Red to a 3-2 (1-1 Ivy) record but the squad is ready to move on and conconcentrate on its upcoming game against Yale, where it will hope to avenge a 4-2 loss from last season.