College Field Hockey
Rider University 8, Lehigh University 2
PRINCETON-The first game and opening day. Maybe you can't sleep the night before, you have some butterflies, maybe a little nervous energy and then bam, a 4-0 lead 20 minutes in. The Rider University field hockey team could not have scripted a better start to the 2009 season as the Broncs scored a resounding 8-2 win over Lehigh University at the Princeton Day School Saturday afternoon.
"I knew we were going to be young and somewhat inexperienced out there offensively," said head coach Lori Hussong (118-63) who is in her 10th season at Rider. "We knew we were bringing in kids that were going to add some scoring punch but we did not know how long they were going to take to get them integrated to our system. It looks like it took about 20 minutes."
For the Broncs, sophomore Virginia Egusquiza (Getxo, Spain), the Northeast Conference Rookie of the Year last season, picked up right where she left off with two goals and two assists.
"If we hustle, we have the technique and the ability to be successful," Egusquiza said. "We've been passing the ball better and the players without the ball have been hustling into position and that gave us the opportunities to score today."
Freshman Jackie Adams (Medford Lakes/Shawnee) and junior Margaret Ecke (New Egypt) also notched two goals each for Rider.
"It feels really good," Adams said describing her first collegiate game. "It was really exciting; we all came together and everyone helped out and supported one another. All of the goals came off of passes and if everyone works together, that is how we are going to score and get it done."
"All of the freshmen certainly came through today," Hussong said. "Jackie, she is a spark plug and we are going to use her all over the field. Anywhere we play her, whether it is on the inside or the outside of the field, she is someone that is capable of putting the ball in the cage at any time because she is scrappy. She reminds us of Christina Ang, who was also a player who just did the dirty work to get the rebound goals."
"I was really nervous, but at some point you have to put that aside and just go out there and play," Adams added.
Ang is a pretty good player to be compared to as she graduated in 2005 at Rider's career leader in goals (66) and points (144) and was a two-time Northeast Conference Player of the Year.
"I think today was just a big turnaround for us," said Ecke, one of 13 returning letterwinners. "We came off losing a lot of seniors (seven) from last year and we really needed to become more of an offensive threat this year. We really stepped it up and the freshmen coming in bring a whole new attitude and a little more tenacity onto the field."
Senior goalie Lyndsie Johnson (Gibbsboro/Eastern) made five saves as Rider (1-0) out-shot the Mountain Hawks 26-10.
Ecke opened the scoring eight minutes into the game on a give and go from Egusquiza with Adams scoring seven minutes later off a loose ball in front of the cage.
Sophomore Megan Pisani (Plainsboro/West Windsor Plainsboro-North) scored her first goal of the season off a pass from freshman Gabby Burgo (Collingswood) 17 minutes into the game with Egusquiza converting a penalty stroke at the 20:56 mark of period one.
Adams gave Rider a 5-0 lead off a rebound, assisted by sophomore Natasha Tukeva (Easton, Pa./Freedom) before Lehigh (0-1) got on the board just before half time.
Rider held a 14-5 edge in shots and a 9-0 penalty corner advantage in the opening half.
The Mountain Hawks kept up the pressure on the Rider defense and scored 1:32 into the second half to cut the deficit to three on a penalty shot.
"I think we lost our focus a little bit when we had the five goal lead and that was due to inexperience defensively," Hussong said. "We had switched up the lineup a little bit, but there is no excuses for giving up the two quick goals. We are vulnerable to that one ball beating us down the field and we have to be careful of that because in a tighter game it is going to hurt us."
Freshman Marlaine Schneider (Feasterville, Pa./Neshaminy) took an Egusquiza pass for her first career goal with 12 minutes remaining to give Rider a 6-2 lead before another Egusquiza penalty stroke gave the Broncs a five goal lead.
Ecke finished out the scoring with 10 minutes left on a flick from five yards out.
Seven different players had a point, something that the Broncs see as an advantage as the season progresses. "It is nice when you don't have to rely on one player to provide all your offense or all of your shots on goal," Hussong said. "It makes our team a whole heck of a lot harder to defend. Lehigh is a good team but they couldn't really key on just one player because everyone was moving in tandem and everybody was swarming at the same time so it was very hard to contain our offense today."
This is Rider's highest offensive output since defeating Catawba on August 28, 2005 by a 9-0 score.
The Broncs have won 15 of the 32 games (1 tie) in the series. Last season, Rider defeated Lehigh 3-1 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
Rider is now 3-7 in season openers under Hussong with the first nine decided by one goal including three games that went into overtime. Last season, Hofstra defeated the Broncs 2-1 in overtime. In the 2007 opener, West Chester defeated Rider 2-1 and in 2006, Rider defeated West Chester 4-3. In 2005, Davidson defeated the Broncs 3-2 in double overtime and in 2004, Rider defeated Colgate 3-2. In 2003, the Broncs took Providence to overtime in the opener before losing 5-4 and in 2002, La Salle defeated Rider 3-2. West Chester shutout the Broncs 1-0 to start the 2001 campaign.
The Broncs travel to Philadelphia to face Temple at Drexel's Buckley Field on September 1. The Owls, who recently received votes in the top 25 coaches' poll, lost to fifth ranked Connecticut 2-0 on August 28 and host Saint Francis (PA) on August 30 before facing the Broncs Tuesday.
"You know we have a tough schedule ahead of us and we do that purposely because we want it to prepare ourselves for the rigors of the conference and hopefully postseason play," said Hussong. "We are just going to try and get better and better with each game and if our effort is what it was like today, then we are going to be pretty successful down the road."
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