The Hawks field hockey team split their conference home games this week, beating the Sacred Heart University Pioneers, but falling to the Quinnipiac University Bobcats in the following game. This week’s games pushed the Hawk’s record to 6-10 overall and 3-1 in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference.
On Friday, the Hawks dominated the Pioneers by defeating them 5-0 at So Sweet a Cat Field. “We had a lot of scoring opportunities from a lot of different people which is huge for us,” explained head coach Carli Figlio. “I think a couple of people really stepped up big time today.”
Junior midfielder Hannah Loux and senior defender Alex Carroll led the Hawk’s attack. Loux scored two goals and garnered praise from her coach for her stellar play and offensive creativity. “Hannah had a fantastic game today,” said Figlio. “There was a ton of attacks created from her.”
Carroll continued her impressive season by scoring two goals, which extended her team leading goal output to 9. Carroll has led the Hawks the entire season and her extraordinary play and hard work has not gone unnoticed. “Alex is really on a hot streak as far as scoring is concerned. She is one of our deepest defenders. She is a captain and a senior and I think were all super proud of her because she really did what she had to do over the summer to get her in this position where she is playing the best hockey she has ever played before,” said Figlio.
Although it is obvious that Carroll is having a great season, she credits the success of her season to her teammates. “All of my goals have come off of corners,” said Carroll. “So it’s really the team that is setting me up for them.”
Carroll gave the Hawks a 1-0 lead in the first half on a penalty stroke which was awarded after Pioneer’s goalkeeper Mary Altepeter played the ball with the back of her stick in front of the net.
The score remained the same until senior Trish O’Dwyer centered a pass that was controlled by Loux who quickly shot and scored to put the Hawks up 2-0. Loux added her second goal of the game in the waning seconds of the first half to give the Hawks a 3-0 lead going into halftime.
The Hawks completely took over the game in the second half adding two more goals highlighted by Carroll’s second goal, which came off of a corner that was executed perfectly by O’Dwyer.
The game marked the Hawks third consecutive conference win. Despite playing arguably their best game of the season, the Hawks were unable to maintain their momentum against Quinnipiac.
On Sunday, the Bobcats defeated the Hawks on senior day 4-2. The Hawks fell behind early when the Bobcat’s Jennalise Taylor and Jess Rusin both scored on corners within the first 11 minutes of the game. O’Dwyer scored late in the first half to cut the Bobcats lead to 2-1 entering halftime.
The Bobcats scored early in the second half after Taylor notched her second goal extending the lead to 3-1. MU quickly answered just one minute and 44 seconds later when O’Dwyer took a pass from junior Melanie Dawson and fired it passed the goalkeeper to put the deficit at one.
Even with O’Dwyer’s two-goal performance and several scoring chances, the Hawks were not able to find the equalizing goal. Quinnipiac all but finished the game after Savanna Reilly scored their fourth goal late in regulation.
Figlio believes that that her team still needs to improve in some facets in order to reach their full potential.
“I think we definitely have some skill things we need to work on,” said Figlio. “If we can continue gaining confidence and playing as hard as we are, we can do whatever we want to do.”
Despite their first conference loss of the season, the Hawk’s 3-1 conference record is good enough for a tie for second in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference with two other teams: the Bryant University Bulldogs and Quinnipiac.
The Hawks will return to action Friday, Nov. 1 when they play their final home game of the season against the, current, first-place Rider University Broncos.
