Field hockey team splits pair of weekend matches

Somewhere along the way from Bloomington to Evanston, Ill., the IU field hockey team lost the momentum gained with its 3-2 overtime victory against Louisville on Oct. 5.

IU squandered an opportunity to post its first win in conference play, falling 4-2 to Northwestern on Friday. IU dropped to 0-3 in Big Ten play.

Fifteen minutes into the contest, the Hoosiers trailed 0-2.

Ten minutes into the second half, IU tallied a goal by senior midfielder Kelsey Kiper.

However, the Wildcats caged two more goals and went on to win the game.

Once again, penalty corners played a significant factor as Northwestern earned 14 to the Hoosiers’ four.

“It’s hard to put a finger on,” IU coach Amy Robertson said. “We looked tentative in the game. Then we sagged on defense and gave them more room to work with. They have a really strong forward line, and if you give them room and let them receive, they’re going to take advantage of it.

“We had a lot of turnovers. Instead of taking the momentum, we were pretty happy to get the win against Louisville. It deflated a little bit of our motivation.”

Junior goalkeeper Becky Pany started in the cage for IU during the weekend.

“It’s a matter of one, we have two great goalkeepers and two, Alex is not a 100 percent. Her knee had swollen up,” Robertson said. “That made the decision pretty easy to play Becky.”

The Hoosiers quickly put the loss behind them. Less than 24 hours later, they squared off against University of California-Davis. IU scored on a goal by sophomore forward Shareyna Chang. Freshman forward Mariella Grote earned the assist.

Though Chang’s goal proved to be the lone score of the game, the Hoosiers created many more opportunities for themselves against the Aggies, outshooting them 17-7 and earning a 12-3 penalty corner advantage.

“We came together as a team and set three specific goals that everyone on the team can focus on and so that we can ensure we can all execute them during the game,” Chang said.