ITHACA, N.Y. – The Big Red field hockey team held its own over the first 35 minutes against defending national champion Syracuse before four second half goals gave the No. 4 Orange the 5-0 victory this afternoon at Marsha Dodson Field.
"In the first half I was pretty happy with our play and I think we executed what we wanted to do," said head coach
Donna Hornibrook. "Obviously, we would have liked to have gotten on the scoreboard, but it was a pretty tight game. I think as the game went on the [Syracuse] ball movement wore us down a little bit and we got a little bit impatient trying to move the ball. I thought the girls played a really hard game but we made some defensive errors and that cost us."
The Big Red held the high-power Syracuse offense to just seven shots and two penalty corner attempts in the first half, one of which was converted by Roos Weers on a ball lifted into the upper left-hand corner of the goal.
The Orange, coming off a 5-1 win over No. 2 Duke on Friday night in which it scored four first-half goals, turned up the offensive pressure over the final 35 minutes. For the second half, Syracuse outshot Cornell 13-1 and had the 7-1 edge in penalty corners.
Weers added a second penalty corner goal on a nearly identical shot in the 43rd minute. On both of Weers' goals Emma Lamison and Elaine Carey earned the assists. The final three goals all came in a span of just over seven minutes late in the game. The first came from Emma Tufts, who converted a rebound following an outstanding save by Cornell goalie
Kelly Johnson. The second was an unassisted tally from Emilie Bruijn and final goal was scored by Laura Hurff after a give-away deep in the Cornell defensive end put her one-on-one with
Maddie Henry, who had just come on to relieve Johnson moments earlier.
Johnson finished with six saves and allowed four goals over a span of 62:49. Henry did not make a save.
Cornell (6-6, 1-2 Ivy) is back in action next weekend when it travels to Harvard on Saturday, Oct. 15 to take on the Crimson at noon.
