Hoosiers play for first win against Stanford

The Stanford Cardinals will travel to Bloomington for women's field hockey action today at 3:30 p.m. The Hoosiers are looking for their first win of the season, their second since becoming a varsity sport one year ago. The Hoosiers are 0-3 so far this season.\nStanford, who returns 10 starters from last year, visits Louisville, Ky. before heading to the Mellencamp Pavilion. It is questionable whether fatigue will play a factor in today's game.\n"They are traveling all the way here, and they are playing a couple of games while they're here, so I think they'll be pretty tired," junior Anna Ward said. \nIU returns 10 players from last year's team, complimented by 11 new faces. Youth look to provide them with the sparkplug they need for victory. \n"We're still kind of finding ourselves. It's been different people playing since the first game in different positions, and we haven't had a chance to really settle in with a solid lineup," coach Amy Robertson said. "Our goal is to try and get quicker. We're gonna have a lot of people coming in, especially on the forward line, and I have a couple of freshmen who are full of energy, immediately they lift everyone else up."\nSenior Brooke Magers said she wasn't planning on her new teammates to play as big a factor.\n"I think the fact that there are eleven new players on the team, we didn't realize what an impact these 11 new girls would make," she said.\nThe Hoosiers finished up their first road trip last week losing to Rhode Island 1-0. IU lost its second game of the weekend 3-0, unable to get a shot off on goal. Robertson knows that they will need to attack better to pull off a victory against Stanford.\n"Stanford has so many games and their playing so many different opponents but they have a lot of experience on their team. They have some fast attack players," she said. "They show really good poise and skill, but we have a lot of size in the backfield, and they're gonna have to go around us. I think we match up pretty well, it's just a matter of us keeping better possession."\nThe team hopes that by following team goals, they can perform at a higher level. They will need to speed up the tempo and be able to think faster to react to the more experienced Stanford.\n"We need to have quick transition on offense and defense, take our free hits quickly, and quick decision making," junior Molly Pulkrabek said.\nOverall, the Hoosiers said victory is not out of reach. \n"I think it's a game that we definitely can win," Magers said. "If we step it up we will be able to do it"