College Field Hockey
Rider University 3, West Chester University 2
WEST CHESTER, Pa.?The calendar still says mid-September. But for the Rider field hockey team, the trip to West Chester probably felt like Halloween as the game was a treat thanks to a hat trick from senior Tricia Crotty. And to make the story line complete, things got a little scary at the end after the Broncs almost gave up a three goal lead in the final 11 minutes.
“We had to make it exciting,” said head coach Lori Hussong. “You don't want to win that way but we'll take it. If we learn how to play a full 70 minutes, we have the potential to do extremely well.”
Crotty (Lewistown, Pa./Indian Valley) scored a natural hat trick as Rider held on for a 3-2 win Wednesday night.
“Tricia was outstanding tonight,” said Lori Hussong. “She made some great moves down the field and I'm happy that her hard work is paying off.
Crotty hit the back of the cage with an unassisted goal 30 minutes into the game, breaking a scoreless tie and scored again three minutes later to give Rider (2-3) a 2-0 lead at intermission.
“The first goal, I just ran down the field and got inside the circle and put it toward the goal,” Crotty remembered. “I was thinking someone would be there to deflect it. It happened to go in when I shot it. I was really just trying to get it on the cage. The more we shoot, even if it's not a perfect shot, we have players on the offensive end that are around the goal and we just have to get it into the circle to create scoring chances and that's what I did tonight. The offensive pressure that the team applied to West Chester allowed me to get some quality shots and we were able to capitalize.”
Crotty scored her fifth goal of the season and 37th of her career, 11 minutes into the second half to give the Broncs a three goal cushion.
Crotty moved into fifth place all-time on the goals scored list at Rider and her six point night moved her into seventh place all-time on the Bronc scoring list with 84 points.
“We know West Chester is a good team,” said Crotty. “We came out ready to play and win, especially in the first half. We just played ?pressure-steal' and stayed all over them. I think we let our guard down a little in the second half.”
“For the first 45-50 minutes, we played awesome field hockey,” Lori Hussong added. “We were aggressive and thinking score. After a while, we sat back a little and West Chester to their credit took it to us and we started reacting to what they did instead of them reacting to us.”
West Chester countered with the next six shots in a row, finally scoring with 11 minutes left in the game and the Golden Rams scored again less than two minutes later to get within one at 3-2. “We were coasting home with a nice three goal lead and then all heck broke loose,” said assistant coach Dan Hussong. “The shots were 17-1 until right before their first goal and West Chester wound up taking the last nine shots of the game. We gave them life after a defensive error on a corner and that led to the first goal.”
Two sprawling saves by junior goalie Lyndsie Johnson (Gibbsboro/Eastern) in the last the last two minutes of the game preserved the Rider win.
“The second half was really all mental,” said Crotty about West Chester's comeback. “We all kind of let our guard down and I think we learned that we need to play the whole game like the score is 0-0 and not let up.”
“Neither goal was Lyndsie's fault,” said Lori Hussong about the performance of her goalie. “She saved the game for us at the end with some great saves. The last six minutes, there were at least two plays where Lyndsie came out of nowhere to make a spectacular play.”
Johnson made seven saves for Rider, six in the second half. The Broncs out-shot West Chester 17-10, holding a 12-1 advantage in the opening period.
“Lyndsie had a great game,” Dan Hussong added. “We let West Chester think they could win and they almost did. It's a quality win but it got a little scary. This was a good learning experience about the need to play a full 70 minutes.”
“Lyndsie kept us in the game, especially at the end,” Crotty added. “She came up with every big play when we needed her to.”
The Golden Rams held a 10-9 advantage in penalty corners including an 8-2 advantage in the second half.
The Broncs have won two in a row, both at West Chester after participating in the Vonnie Gros Field Hockey Classic last Sunday against Appalachian State, also a 3-2 win.
Crotty scoring the game-winner in both games at West Chester this past week and now has 13 game-winners in her 64 game collegiate career.
Rider has won seven of the 18 games (one tie) in the series against the Golden Rams. West Chester defeated the Broncs 2-1 to open the 2007 season with Rider defeating the Golden Rams 4-3 in 2006.
The Broncs travel to Lehigh on Saturday for a 5:00pm non-conference game. The 2008 season home opener will be on September 26 at 4:00pm against Radford.
“We are just taking things one game at a time,” Lori Hussong added. “We are hoping to get a little better each time out and I think we are improving with each game we've played.”
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