0-2 squad travels home — to New York
Greg Burghardt
It will be similar to a home game this weekend when the field hockey team plays a pair of games in New York.
The team has five players from New York, and many parents, alumni and prospective recruits will attend the games.
The 0-2 Chippewas will look to turn things around against 1-3 Syracuse at 7 p.m. today. The Chippewas will play Cornell (1-2) Sunday.
“Our offense needs to give quick releases on our passing, and we need to score,” said senior co-captain Tarah Trottier. “Our defense is almost there on transition plays. But, against Northwestern we were getting back too late, and their speed exposed us.”
Syracuse got its first win Wednesday in its home opener against Albany, 8-1. The eight goals were the most for the team since a 9-0 rout of Lowell in 1990. Meredith Gettel and Joanne Lombard led the Orangewomen with two goals each.
“We need to be more consistent this weekend,” said Head Coach Cristy Freese. “We played good defense our first game, and we had a good offense the second game. Now we just need to blend those two things together for a good game.”
The Chippewas have never played Cornell, and are 0-1 all-time against Ivy League schools.
Danielle Dunn and Lindsay Grace each have three points this season for the Redbirds.
Because of a long road trip, CMU was only able to get two days of practice to prepare for the weekend.
“We have to steal the ball and our forwards and backs have to be more aggressive,” Freese said. “At Northwestern, we scored more goals when we were aggressive.”
One problem CMU has had is individual defense, Freese said.
“Our one-on-one defense has to improve,” Freese said. “We let Northwestern control too much of that.”
The Chippewas changed its penalty corner defense this season, but will revert to last season’s plays.
“We changed our corner defense a little bit,” Freese said. “Indiana and Northwestern both scored on corners so we decided to switch back to what we used last year. Syracuse got a tape of the Indiana game, so they won’t know what defense we will be running.”
