Second-half droughts plague field hockey
Sometimes young teams can be tough to predict.
CMU (5-11 overall, 4-4 Mid-American Conference) lost two games this weekend, falling to .500 in the MAC after a 4-2 loss Saturday at Miami and a 2-1 loss Sunday at Ball State. CMU struggled on Saturday, but had several statistical advantages Sunday against the Cardinals, out-shooting Ball State 11-9 while having one more corner opportunity.
"It was very disappointing," said coach Cristy Freese. "We made some mistakes defensively that led to goals and offensively we missed some opportunities and that certainly made a difference."
Central led 1-0 Sunday, but was shut out in the second half. Junior forward Kelly Jordan scored in the 38th minute off a pass from junior midfielder Samantha Sandham to give CMU a 1-0 lead.
Ball State answered in the 41st minute off a penalty corner. The Cardinals' Melanie Pasillas fired a pass to Jodi Mann, who passed to Amanda Pavone for the tying score.
Ball State scored the winning goal in the 54th minute on another penalty corner opportunity. BSU's Jamie Kahn scored off a pass from Katie Kloeckener.
The Chippewas failed to score in the second half Saturday against Miami, as well. The RedHawks scored four unanswered goals to end CMU's three-game MAC winning streak.
Sandham struck first in the 20th minute, scoring unassisted to give Central a 1-0 lead. Miami scored twice, however, to take a 2-1 lead into halftime.
The RedHawks added two more goals in the first 15 minutes of the second half as Alyssa Nye scored her second and third goals of the game. CMU's Moyra Bertuzzi scored her team-leading sixth goal of the season, but it was not enough.
As upset as Freese was at the outcome of the Ball State game, she was mostly happy with the way her team played on Sunday.
"We were playing hard each game," she said. "We needed to handle the pressure and the adversity a little bit. I don't think we were able to do that as well against Miami. I thought we played a decent game against Ball State, but we need to score goals."
Freese said the two losses hurt the team's seeding for the MAC Tournament, but sees no reason why her team can't bounce back.
"As a team we're not going to let this affect us," Freese said. "We go to practice on Tuesday. We want to win on Friday and Saturday. We have two homes games that will affect seeding in the MAC Tournament."
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