When Amber Youtz goes out onto the field, she says that she doesn’t let the stats and the crowd distract her.
But on Alumni Day at Geasy Field, there was plenty of former talent and Owls greats on hand to watch the senior midfielder put on a show as she earned a hat trick in the Owls’ 4-1 victory over La Salle.
The hat trick was one of two that Youtz picked up over the weekend, for a total of seven goals scored. With her performance this past weekend, Youtz has eclipsed 56 goals in her career, making her the fourth-highest scorer in team history.
“We’re having a more sustained attack, which is giving us a ton more shots and opportunities,” Youtz said.
Youtz’s scoring on Sunday is part of the Owls’ recent surge in offense.
“We took what happened [in Temple’s 6-3 win against Villanova Friday] and used it,” junior forward Alysa Delp said. “We had hit a lull [on Friday], but we went in today thinking ‘Don’t let up at any point of the game’. We don’t always have to be on attack, but it’s just maintaining a strong overall play and not having any vulnerable times.”
The Owls also have been able to make progress on offensive goals made in recent weeks. Last week after a loss to Penn State in which the Owls only had one penalty corner, coach Amanda Janney said that she would like to see the Owls create more opportunities to score with penalty corners.
On Sunday against La Salle, Temple was able to pick up eight penalty corners, a noticeable improvement.
“I think we came out a lot more positive and knowing the things we need to fix. Sometimes we are really hard on ourselves and at the end of the day we just have to take a step back and look at what we’ve done and what we are accomplishing,” Youtz said.
Passing for the Owls against La Salle was also much crisper, promoting a more up-tempo offense that was able to keep possession.
“A lot of what we were talking about in practice was about communication and setting up the lines,” Youtz said. “A lot of people were taking away the passing lines and I think that really improved today. They weren’t able to break us.'”
The Owls will look to keep up their scoring in their next game on Friday at Old Dominion in Norfolk, Virginia at 3 p.m.
Ashlyn Miller can be reached at ashlyn.miller@temple.edu.
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