Field Hockey shoots for MAC title
The field hockey team must win one of its final two games to at least share the regular season MAC title.
In order to win the title outright, they must win road games at Ohio today and Kent State tomorrow.
“I thought we did a real good job the last time we played Ohio,” said Head Coach Cristy Freese. “We need to mark Ohio tight and not let them receive the ball.”
The Chippewas will have to stop Andrea Voros and Elizabeth Unger.
Voros and Unger are second and third in the MAC with 12 and 11 goals, respectively.
“If we play aggressive defensively, then we will do well,” Freese said. “We need to put pressure on their passers and make them release the ball sooner than they want to; (if we do that); I think we will do fine.”
Freese does not want to change how her team has been playing.
“We need to continue to do what we have been doing,” Freese said. “We played well in the loss to Louisville, but in that game and the last time we played Ohio, we had about a 10-minute period where we didn't play very aggressively at all and that is when both those teams scored their goals.”
The team is aware of the situation it is in.
“If we beat Ohio, then we go into the Kent State game already having the title and with a little bit less pressure. We are approaching the weekend like we want to win two games and be MAC champs,” Freese said.
The last time CMU played Kent State, the game went into double-overtime before sophomore Kristy Reed scored.
“The first time we played Kent, we pressured them a lot and broke up their rhythm,” Freese said. “We can get the ball behind their defense and take quick shots.”
A key for the Chippewas against Kent State is their corner defense.
“Kent State has traditionally had good corner plays,”Freese said. “Reed has been good at disrupting corners by blocking shots and that has helped us out a lot this year. We need to play good team defense and do well on our penalty corners.”
After finishing up the MAC regular season, the Chippewas will be off until the MAC Tournament at Ohio on Nov. 8-10.
