The remnants of Hurricane Ivan swept through New England Saturday, leaving the women’s field hockey team waiting for Sunday to face off with league rival Trinity.
With a crisp wind on the tail of the storm, the skies over Middletown were cloudless and sunny, giving players and fans a tremendous taste of early fall weather as the Cardinal women jumped out to an early 1-0 lead and suffocated the Bantam attack en route to a 2-0 shutout and their second straight victory.
Co-captain Jen Wasserman ’05 got Wes on the board midway through the first half when Sarah Rosenfeld ’07 intercepted an attempted clear and made a good up-field pass to Cortney Tetrault ’07, setting up an assist to Wasserman. Tetrault added an insurance goal with under a minute to play in the second half, scoring off a penalty corner to seal the deal for the Cardinals. Wasserman, who scored twice in Thursday’s 2-1 win over Babson, credits the players around her for the recent flurry of goals.
“I’ve been getting some really great assists,” Wasserman said. “The other players are doing all the work and I’m just getting myself to the right spot. These are big effort goals.”
Coach Patti Klecha-Porter echoed Wasserman’s praise of the team effort.
“The team played with a confident calm and good patience out there,” Klecha-Porter said. “We spread the field the best we have yet, and the defense did a great job moving the ball out of the deep backfield and into transition. It was a nice win.”
Goalie Caitlin Kelly ’07 deserves her share of individual credit though, as the sophomore net-minder turned away five Trinity scoring attempts and posted her fourth career shutout.
“Caitlin was more of a presence in the cage today,” Klecha-Porter said. “Goalies can’t wait on their heels for something to happen, they have to react aggressively to what they see coming at them, and I felt like I saw some more of that out of Caitlin today.”
“We all have confidence in her,” said co-captain Megan Gauvey-Kern ’05 . “It’s just comes down to her having confidence in herself.”
The win against Trinity gives the team its first NESCAC win in two attempts, as the Cards went down in the season opener 4-3 to Williams in overtime.
“It’s great to get off to a 2-1 start and get that first league win,” Wasserman said. “With Middlebury this coming weekend, and a non-league game against Smith this week, it’s nice to be on a little roll. Hopefully it’ll carry over for these next two games.”
Seeing Trinity at home on Sunday meant seeing the Bantams away from its more familiar turf surface. Wesleyan scrimmaged with Trinity at their field earlier this year and put forth another scoreless defensive effort, but Gauvey-Kern could not help but discuss the surface as a factor.
“They’re a turf team, and we’ve definitely had more trouble with them on turf,” Gauvey-Kern said. “We had the home field advantage today, and the grass gives us a little edge. But either way, we expected a win from ourselves, and you have to leave the terrain out of your mind.”
Middlebury rolled over Tufts 7-1 this weekend, playing them on turf at home in Vermont. Tufts is one of several NESCAC teams, Wesleyan and Amherst among them, without a turf home field. Following a Wesleyan summer training trip to Europe that was very focused on elevating turf play, it will be interesting to see how great the disadvantage truly is for a grass team playing on turf, and how valuable this summer’s trip has been to the Cardinal women as they make the trip to Middlebury this weekend. Before Saturday’s turf trial with the Bobcats, Wesleyan will play Smith at 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday.
Leave a Reply