ITHACA, N.Y. – The Cornell University field hockey team tied the school record for goals in a game as it defeated Bryant, 9-0, this afternoon on Marsha Dodson Field. With the win, the Big Red improves to 8-4 on the season.

 

“I was pleased with how many scoring opportunities we had and with our finishing today,” said head coach Donna Hornibrook. “This was a solid team effort with great balance in our scoring and I was happy to see good production out of some of our younger players.”

 

Sophomore Catie De Stio led the Big Red with three goals and one assist while freshman Maura Greenwood tallied the first points of her collegiate career with two goals and one assist. Sophomore Kate Thompson also registered one goal and two assists and the Big Red got goals from Katie Kirnan, Carolyn Franco and Sara Sanders. Abbi Horn and Belen Martinez each registered two assists apiece and Jess Buckingham registered an assist as well.

 

In goal, junior Melanie Jue made two saves in the first 30 minutes of the contest before freshman Alex Botte came on in relief and stopped three shots. For the Bulldogs, Kundayi Mawema stopped six shots and allowed six goals in the first half of action and Jennifer Gullotti allowed three goals and made two saves.

 

The Big Red outshot Bryant, 23-8 and held a 10-4 advantage in penalty corners.

 

Cornell's first goal came just three minutes into the contest when a turnover by a Bryant defender deep in Bulldog territory gave the ball to De Stio and the sophomore attacker broke uncontested on the goal. As Mawema came out to challenge De Stio, she beat the goalie to the right and slotted the ball into the empty net.

 

A penalty corner set up the Big Red's next goal as Stephanie Brownstein faked the shot and passed to Martinez on the right side of the circle. Martinez put a shot on goal and De Stio redirected it into the net to make it a 2-0 game at the 5:33 mark.

 

De Stio had a hand in the third goal of the day as well as she passed the ball to Kirnan, who lifted the ball into the upper left hand corner of the goal to give Cornell the 3-0 lead.

 

The Big Red pushed the lead to 4-0 when Abbi Horn ripped a shot on net and Mawema made a kick save, but wasn't able to get the ball passed Greenwood, who dove and slapped the ball back into the net.

 

Greenwood got her second goal of the day in the 34^th minute when she tipped in a penalty corner shot by Martinez to make it a 5-0 game.

 

Cornell converted again with just 17 seconds remaining in the first half when Greenwood collected the ball during a scrum in front of the net and slotted a pass to De Stio, who scored her final goal of the game and sent the Big Red into the locker room with the 6-0 advantage.

 

The Big Red capitalized on penalty corners in the final 35 minutes, scoring on three of its four penalty corner attempts in the half.

 

The first came at 47:59 when Franco ripped a low, hard shot into the back of the net to make it a 7-0 game. Just over four minutes later, Sara Sanders tallied her second goal of the season when she beat Gullotti with a hard shot into the left corner of the goal. Both goals were assisted on by Horn and Thompson.

 

Cornell's final goal of the game came in the 57^th minute when Buckingham, as the stick stopper, received the ball and instead of laying it off, took the shot herself and had the ball redirected into the goal by Thompson.

 

The Big Red hits the road next weekend, traveling to Cambridge, Mass., to take on Harvard on Saturday, Oct. 18 at noon.