Hoosiers come up short

The field hockey team survived its battle against rival No. 4 Michigan by playing a game of cat and mouse. \nThe Hoosiers allowed perimeter passing, but halted most of the Wolverines devastating attacks by converging on the ball like vultures. Michigan defeated IU 8-0, but coach Amy Robertson said she believed the Hoosiers won a moral victory.\n"I consider this a victory for our team," Robertson said. "Everyone stuck to the game plan and worked hard for 70 minutes. I think we believed that this plan would really work."\nIU's defense established itself early, but could only hold off the Wolverine threats for 15 minutes until Michigan's Kristi Gannon scorched a shot off a penalty corner for the first of her four goals in the game. The Hoosiers buckled down and allowed one more goal the first half, but penalty corners hurt them the rest of the game.\n"Most of the goals were scored on penalty corners and Michigan had some really hard hitters," Robertson said. "Typically Michigan can also score off rebounds, and we were saving those. Our game plan was to step up on them and box them out so they couldn't get second shots."\nAlthough Michigan scored eight goals, the score did not reflect the exceptional play of IU's defense led by senior keeper Alexandra Kaufman and senior back Tania Hults. Kaufman received endless praise for her goalkeeping from an impressed Robertson.\n"I'm really happy with the play of (Kaufman)," Robertson said. "That is amazing to save three out of four penalty strokes. It\'s usually unheard of to have four penalty strokes against you, but that just goes to show how hard the defense was working and how determined they were to keep the ball out of the goal cage."\nKaufman stopped 16 shots as goalie. The entire defense contributed to Kaufman\'s game, but the team could not maintain the intensity needed to contain the Wolverines for the entire 70 minutes.\n"We did a great job shutting them down in the first half because we were focused," Kaufman said. "In the second half we got tired and started having little breakdowns, and Michigan is so good that if you breakdown for a second, they will capitalize right away."\nBloodied and beaten from the physical game, Hults shrugged off the injuries and viewed the game positively.\n"I think this just pumped us up more," Hults said. "It feels more like a victory to play such a team and play them so well. It was our first Big Ten game, and we didn\'t feel like we were walked on"