Field hockey shut out by Lafayette

The field hockey team was shut out today at Geasey Field, losing 3-0 against Lafayette.

Junior forward Lauren Hunt said that the forwards weren’t able to work together.

“We had a lot balls go over our post, and that comes from keeping the balance with our forwards,” Hunt said. “We were all cutting back to the ball, when we needed one another to cut wide to finish plays.”

Coach Amanda Janney said that she was disappointed that her offense couldn’t get any type of tempo after the Owls’ showing against No. 8 Penn State Saturday.

“It’s disappointing to see us coming from a game that we played well against a Top 10 team, and not bring that same tempo to this game,” Janney said.

Leopards’ sophomore defender Jenna Seybert broke a tie with her first goal of the season off of a penalty corner.

Going into the second half down one, the Owls kept the game within reach until Lafayette scored two more times in the 53rd and 60th minute.

The Lady Leopards’ final goal, scored unassisted by senior forward Deanna Dicroce, put the game out of hand for Temple.

Janney said that the number of corners that Temple gave up was a big part of today’s loss. Lafayette had 10 penalty corners on the day, and scored one of their goals on a corner.

“Good teams are going to score on corners no matter what we do,” Janney said. “But the number of corners that we are giving up is a major problem for us, and it’s putting our goalkeeper under too much pressure.”

With the Temple offense struggling, sophomore forward Amber Youtz said that missing opportunities was another factor in today’s loss.

“We had a ton of opportunities, and we were just panicking and not playing our game,” Youtz said. “We played to their level, and we can’t do that playing against teams like this.”

Defensively for the Owls, this has been the second game in a row that a team has scored two or more goals against them in the second half.

Janney said that when the Temple defense begins to struggle, more mental mistakes occur.

“Our defense gets kind of down on themselves and continue to make the same mistakes over and over again,” Janney said.

With the Owls struggling to score this past weekend in their two losses, Janney said that she wants to work on getting the offense to have stronger attacks.

“We need to work on our ability to create more of an attack,” Janney said. “Getting shut out like this is really disappointing.”

Next weekend, Temple has a full plate of home games featuring Colgate, Drexel and Delaware.

Hunt said that sweeping the three games, including one against inter-city rival Drexel, would be a step in the right direction.

“Winning those games will be big,” Hunt said. “We want to have a winning record this year and if we can’t do it this weekend, we’re going to get into an even bigger hole.”

Colin Tansits can be reached at colin.tansits@temple.edu.