The field hockey team has had many aspects of its game present so far in its young season save one, consistency.
The past weekend saw Cornell play formidably, as when it shut out Ivy foe Columbia. The defense held Columbia to six shots and junior Gina Testa registered the first two goals of her career. At other times, however, the team failed to come together as it did when it collapsed in the second half against Central Michigan last Sunday. The Red were outshot 11-2 in the second half and allowed three unanswered goals in the contest.
After splitting its matches for the past two weekends, the squad hopes this trip to Pennsylvania will turn things around. Cornell (2-2, 1-0 Ivy league) looks for its first weekend sweep of the season against league rival Penn (1-3, 0-1 Ivy league) tomorrow and Lafayette (4-3) on Sunday. To do so the team will need to play with a consistency it has yet to find.
Practice for the Red this week has been focused. not so much on preparing for its upcoming match-ups, as correcting problems in its own game.
“Our main goal this week is to be more consistent in our play, to just play intelligently on the field,” said head coach Phillip Sykes. “We are correcting a lot of things that we have been doing wrong last week. We have mainly been worrying about ourselves.”
Unfortunately for the Red, both of its opponents this weekend will not be an easy test.
Though they have lost three games, the Quakers record this season is largely misleading as two of those games were decided by one goal. This included a 3-2 overtime loss to Harvard and a 2-1 loss to Lafayette earlier this week.
“Penn has always been a solid team. They have shown this season from their games that they can play with anyone. It should be a good battle,” said Sykes.
Junior Liz Loreli has been particularly hot for Penn, registering three goals on the season, including two in the last two games. It will be up to senior tri-captain Kimmy Gardner and senior goalie Kaitlin Tierney to shut her down.
The Leopolds are also a dangerous team, and will have momentum coming into their match on Sunday after defeating the Quakers and Penn State — who qualified for the NCAA tournament last year — earlier in the season. Senior Jennifer Stone has been directing Lafayette’s offense while goalie Casey Devon has been strong in net.
Gametime for the Red is tomorrow at 12 p.m. in Philadelphia and Sunday at 1 p.m. in Easton.
Archived article by Chris Callanan