Freese to dig deep into roster at home
Field hockey coach Cristy Freese said her team needs to work on its depth when it hosts Saint Louis University twice this weekend.
In last weekend’s 2-1 win against Syracuse, Freese only substituted two players during the game.
That won’t be the case this weekend with games at
11 a.m. Saturday and Sunday against the Billikens at the CMU Field Hockey Complex.
“We have two games back-to-back,” Freese said. “What we need to work on now is to fine tune what we’re doing with the starters and prepare our players on the bench.”
Saint Louis won its first game of the season last weekend 1-0 against Missouri State.
Freese said the Billikens have proven to be a dangerous scoring team, which is evident from last season’s match between the two teams. Central relinquished a 2-0 lead and lost 3-2.
“Last year, (Saint Louis) seemed to be in really good game shape and seemed to be conditioned well,” senior forward Alicia Balanesi said. “But when it comes to actual skill, I think we have an advantage.”
While Syracuse was a bigger team, SLU will try to use their team speed to score goals.
“I think Saint Louis will be a faster team that actually may challenge us more defensively,” Freese said.
Four seniors started against the Orange — the rest were freshmen and sophomores.
The defense, which was a question mark heading into the season with young and inexperienced players, has responded well so far this season. “They really work well together as a unit and they’re willing to learn which is a good thing,” senior goalie Danielle Frank said.
E-mail reporter Jeremy Goorhouse at sports@cm-life.com
