Field hockey’s UCAA record now stands at 1-1, and their overall record is 4-1 after splitting a pair of league matchups this past weekend.
Friday saw the Red Hawks defeat the Hamilton Continentals, 4-1. Hamilton, clearly overmatched, managed to eke out their only goal late in the first period, but only after RPI junior Tatiana Russell had drilled home a penalty stroke and senior Beth McCooey had scored off of a one-on-one breakaway.
All-American Katie Coleman scored her first goal of the season in the second half, sneaking the ball through a scramble and past Continentals’ Goalie Sarah Baldwin. Forward Jenn Amyot added another insurance goal late in the game on a tick-tack play, with Coleman assisting.
Meanwhile, Goalie Cathy Hotchkiss recorded 12 saves for the Red Hawks, in her first real workout of the season—she had only needed to make three saves in each of RPI’s first three games to preserve the wins.
Saturday was a different story, however, with the Red Hawks taking on a much tougher St. Lawerence team. It was St. Lawrence who ended Rensselaer’s 2000-2001 campaign early last spring, upsetting them in the quarterfinals of the UCAA tournament. The Saints dominated for most of the game, keeping the ball in RPI’s half of the field almost exclusively. To the Red Hawks’ credit, however, the defense still held St. Lawrence at arms length right to the end, allowing 23 shots on goal compared to the 20 RPI’s offense managed to get off the few times they made it to that side of the field.
The Saints scored first, with 24:56 left in the first half, when a bad pass at midfield led to a breakaway led by St. Lawrence Forward Stacey Turner, who eventually got the assist when her pass from the edge of the scoring circle was driven past Hotchkiss by Forward Jenny Heffler.
The Saints scored again 16 minutes later, this time after swarming the net for a solid minute before sneaking one by Hotchkiss. The RPI defense had two opportunities to clear during the play, but failed both times.
The start of the second half brought with it a very frustrated Red Hawks team, down 2-0 and unable to get anything going offensively. That frustration began to show at 26:55 when Hotchkiss and Turner got into a confrontation shortly after the ball sailed wide. The referees moved quickly to break the two apart, and their respective teams pulled them aside while the officials decided on a penalty—green card warnings for both. A penatly corner ensued, but nothing came of it.
Only a few minutes later, Coleman garnered a green card for herself as well for shoving a St. Lawrence attacker as they went by.
Things got only worse for the Red Hawks from then on until they called a timeout halfway through the period to collect themselves. They managed to gather a bit of focus and organize an attack for the first time in the period, and after a St. Lawrence counterattack was broken up, Coleman gobbled up her own rebound from a hard shot and drilled it past Saints’ Goalie Amelie Gomez.
Down only a single goal, the momentum seemed to turn for RPI, as they turned up the pressure and scrambled around the Saints’ net for most of the next few minutes, but they were unable to score. An unfortunate penalty late in the game gave Saints’ Forward Lauren Greene a penalty stroke that she got by the outstrectched leg of Hotchkiss and buried in the corner of the goal. It was the death knell for RPI, coming with only three minutes left, as there just wasn’t enough time for the Red Hawks to score twice more. Their momentum gone, the score became final, 3-1.
It was the first loss of the year for Rensselaer, coming off a record-setting season last year for most wins ever in a single season (11) by an RPI field hockey team.
The team is back in action today when they host Vassar at 4 pm.
