Field hockey hopes to keep momentum going

Looking to keep their emotional high, the IU field hockey team travels to Muncie, Ind., Sunday to face Central Michigan. After beating Ball State Wednesday, the Hoosiers have proved to themselves and to opponents they can win.\n"I think mentally this shows us that we can win and gives us confidence," head coach Amy Robertson said. "We've got that monkey off our back and got our first Division I win. Now they know that we can win."\nRobertson emphasized that the Hoosiers win against Ball State was a hard earned victory and shows how far the IU program has come in its second year as a varsity sport.\n"Ball State is an excellent team," she said. "They are fighting for No. 1 in their conference right now. They beat us 9-0 last year so in one year to turn around and beat a team like that 4-3 is huge confidence."\nOne of IU's four goals against Ball State was scored by freshman forward Ryan Woolsey. Woolsey said he believes the Hoosiers need to carry their confidence from the Ball State victory into the match against Central Michigan.\n"We can use the momentum and take the feeling we had before this game and push forward to our next game," Woolsey said. "We need to remember what it feels like to win and use that feeling to help us win again."\nFreshman goalie Katie Kanara got the win for the Hoosiers. She said she thinks they can use the experience to propel them to more victories in upcoming matches.\n"We can definitely build on it," Kanara said. "I think after the Stanford game we realized that we could do it, and finally we actually did do it. I think we are sick of going out there and playing hard for 60 out of the 70 minutes and (against Ball State) we played hard from the beginning and that made the difference."\nRobertson said she believes the confidence the team gained from the Ball State game is a key component to the success of her young program.\n"We can't apologize and we can't play like we aren't supposed to win," she said. "That's been a tough mentality to instill in a new program."\nAssistant coach Gina Lucido said now that the team has won, they can work to achieve their goals.\n"You can always know that you can win, but know that we have done it the players have that feeling of winning," Lucido said. "As a coach we can take that and work to expand it and grow on that."\nBut Lucido noted the team could work to improve and increase their level of play.\n"I think what's important is that there are so many things we learned (from the Ball State game)," she said. "It certainly wasn't a perfect game, so we aren't going into the Central Michigan game casually."\nCentral Michigan will play Ball State on Saturday in a key match-up of Mid-American Conference opponents. Coming into the weekend IU holds a record of 1-6 while Central Michigan is 3-4.\nRobertson said the team changed their attitude towards pre-game activities prior to the Ball State game and hoped they could keep that energy going into the Central Michigan match-up.\n"We changed our approach to pre-game, instead of being too focused and too serious we decided to have some fun," she said. "We stepped up the energy and enthusiasm during warm-ups and I think that kept us loose and allowed us to not be afraid to make mistakes."\nShe said she also believed teamwork and aggressiveness would be key to IU earning another victory.\n"Central Michigan is a solid team," Robertson said. "I think this is a team that if we can take the tempo and go on the attack from the beginning and everyone plays hard and together, then we can be successful. If we take care of business, the rest should take care of itself"