Team advances to first semifinals since 2005
The field hockey team's quest toward its first Mid-American Conference Championship since 2005 continues today in the semifinals after a 5-0 win Thursday.
The team plays No. 1-seed Kent State at noon today at Murphy-Mellis Field at Kent State University. It defeated Ball State 5-0 in the second round of the MAC Tournament Thursday.
The Golden Flashes beat the Chippewas 4-3 and 5-2 earlier in the season.
Senior Samantha Sandham paced the Chippewas on Thursday with her second hat trick of the season to help advance the team to the semifinals for the first time since 2005.
Sandham also was named MAC Player of the Year Thursday.
"It feels great," Sandham said. "I've got this year left so it would be great to get a win out of this tournament."
The Chippewas got on the scoreboard early when Sandham scored 15 minutes, 51 seconds into the first half on a pass from junior Kim Eramus to give CMU a 1-0 lead. Sandham scored again less than seven minutes later. Eramus and Sandham scored one minute apart later in the half to give CMU a 4-0 lead at the midway mark.
Coach Cristy Freese said it was critical to grab an early lead.
"It was important for us to get off to a good start and we were able to in the first half," Freese said.
Freshman Danika Stone added the Chippewas' fifth goal at 65:12 from fellow freshman Lauren Lead. Lead finished the game with two assists. Junior goaltender Melinda Curran stopped two shots to earn the shutout.
The Chippewas outshot the Cardinals 25-5.
Freese liked the mix of strong defense and offense the team showed.
"Whenever you can score goals like we did and shut a team out, it is a total team effort," Freese said. "Ball State had some chances. I thought they were able to get the ball down in our end but our defense did a nice job of just shutting them down so they weren't getting the shots off."
The Chippewas beat the Cardinals 3-1 and 4-2 earlier in the season.
The team lost in the first round of the tournament in 2006 and the second round in 2007.
"Our team has a lot of confidence," Freese said. "We need to play a very good game (today) against Kent but we also feel we can match up against them."
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