Aaron Johnson – Sports Editor
A cool breeze blew through Jess Dow Field on the campus of Southern Connecticut State University this past Friday as the Southern field hockey fell to Franklin Pierce University in a hard-fought game 4-3. The Owls pulled within one goal with five minutes, but could not get any closer than that.
“We started off the first five minutes pretty good,” said junior co-captain goalkeeper Audrey Dolloff, who anchored the Owls’ defense with four saves. “Then we just disorganized. But I think we found it there at the very end.”
The Owls outshot the Ravens 14-9, but only has five of those shots on target. The Owls trailed the entire game after falling down early in the first half following a goal by Franklin Pierce’s Courtney Kelly on an assist by Tori Gamache. Several minutes after the first goal, the Ravens took a commanding 2-0 lead with a goal from Carly Canavan.
“We outshot them and we out-cornered them,” said co-captain junior Lauren Anderson. “It just comes to do the goals and the amount of work that we do out there on the field.”
Gamache added a goal to push the Ravens’ lead to 3-0. The Owls began to come back late in the first half with goals from sophomore Kristi Montemurro cutting the lead to 3-1. But a second goal from Gamache in the early part of the second half extended the lead to 4-1. Both captains said that after the game head coach Kelley Frassinelli really talked to the entire team about putting together a full game’s effort together, instead of having to work extra hard to dig out of a big hole as a result of the team come out flat.
“I think the full 70 minutes of work that we didn’t do. We have to play the full 70 minutes with no let downs,” Dolloff said.
The Owls controlled the play for the better part of the final 20 minutes. Sophomore Bailey McGinnis connected on a tough angle shot from along the goal line to make it 4-2 with 25:04 left. The Owls pulled even closer after a goal from Sophomore Vienna Pallisco who found the back of the net off of a rebound penalty corner with 5:54 remaining, but that would be the closest that the Owls would as they were shut the final five minutes.
“It was better than Sunday but still not up to our full potential,” Anderson said.
The Owls fall to 1-2 on the season and the Ravens improve to 2-0. Going forward both Anderson said that it is the job of herself and Dollof as team captains to try and keep the team focused on the season and help head coach Kelley Frassinelli get them prepared for the remainder of the season.
“(We try to) just keep the team motivated and be good role models,” Anderson said.
Dollof agreed with her teammate. She said that as captains working hard to keep the team together is always a key.
“It’s just pretty much keeping the team in line and keeping everyone positive,” Dollof said. “Other than that just keeping everyone motivated.”
The Owls are looking to rebound off of a tough 2013 season that saw them finish 5-14 and 4-6 in the conference. A rematch against Franklin is scheduled for next month in New Hampshire. Anderson, Dollof, and the rest of the Owls will look to rebound and even the season series with the Ravens. The Owls next game will be on the road against Merrimack College on September 19th.
Photo Credit: Stephen Ritchie
