Lawrenceville, NJ – Freshman Brittany Romanczuk (Washington, NJ/Notre Dame) scored two goals to lead the Rider University field hockey team past visiting Sacred Heart, 3-0, in Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) action on Friday evening at Ben Cohen Field.

The Broncs (8-7, 3-2 MAAC) topped the Pioneers (6-10, 2-2 MAAC) on Senior Night. Prior to the contest, Rider honored its five seniors and one graduate transfer.

The hosts gave their large crowd something to cheer about early as Romanczuk opened the scoring just 54 seconds into the game. She beat the Sacred Heart defender marking her and fired a shot from inside the circle that found the back of the cage through traffic.

The tally was the first of Romanczuk's career and was the only score during the first 35 minutes of action as Rider took a 1-0 edge into halftime.

The Broncs would add a pair of insurance goals late in the second half to pull away.

Playing in her final home MAAC game, senior Kesheal Henderson (Heath, MA/Mohawk Regional) scored her second marker of the autumn in the 63rd minute off a feed from freshman Eline De Jong (Groningen, Netherlands/Praedinius Gymnasium). De Jong raced towards the cage and played the ball across to Henderson who scored as she dove to the ground.

Just over two minutes later, Romanczuk added some more insurance with her second goal of the game. After Sacred Heart was whistled in front of the cage, Romanczuk converted a penalty stroke.

In the cage for the Broncs, freshman Lena Vandam (Brasschaat, Belgium) turned aside three shots en route to her eighth victory of the fall.

Notes & Quotes
"Anytime you can go out and score a goal within the first couple of minutes it gives your team a lift," Rider Head Coach Lori Hussong said. "From that point on we had a lot of energy on the field and we really played together tonight."

"Our defense has played really well all season long," Hussong added. "I think this week we did a lot of on the offensive end with taking advantage of our scoring opportunities."

- Rider is now 3-2 in home this season.
- Rider has now played 10 of its 15 games this year away from home.
- The Broncs lead the all-time series with Sacred Heart, 22-7.
- Rider has won three straight versus the Pioneers, blanking SHU in back-to-back season. The Broncs have scored three goals in each of their last three wins against Sacred Heart. 
- The Broncs took three penalty corners compared to two for the Pioneers.
- Rider has surrendered one goal or fewer in each of their first five MAAC games in 2017.
- The Broncs have shutout four opponents this year.
- Both of Rider's home conference wins have come by three goals.

Broncs by the Numbers
- The goals were the first two of the season for Romanczuk.
- Rider freshmen have scored 13 of the team's 33 goals.
- Melissa Cunningham had a defensive save for the Broncs. It was her first of the season.
- Vandam has posted four shutouts this year. In 2017, she is 8-7 with a 1.34 goals-against average, a .780 save percentage and 71 saves.
- Romanczuk is the third freshmen to record a multi-goal game in 2017.
- The assist was De Jong's fourth of the season. She is second on the team with 12 points.
- Henderson's goal was her second of the year which is a new career-high.  

Up Next
Rider returns to action on Sunday, October 22, with a road non-conference clash against in-state rival Villanova that is slated to begin at 12:00 pm. The Broncs are 12-6-1 all-time versus the Wildcats and Rider has won seven straight versus Nova. To follow live stats and video for the game visit the field hockey schedule page on GoBroncs.com.