When No. 18 Temple took the field on Sunday afternoon, the 2-1 overtime loss to conference opponent and No. 17 ranked Louisville was still fresh in the mind of senior defender Molly Doyle.
Bucknell ended up having to pay for Doyle’s frustrations.
Doyle was all over the ball on the defensive end and scored all three of Temple’s goals in a bounce back 3-1 win over the Bison.
“Before the game, Molly especially, she was talking about how fired up she was still about the game against Louisville,” senior midfielder Mandi Shearer said after the win.
Shearer was about to continue speaking, until Doyle cut in with “I hate losing.”
“I knew she was going to have a great game,” Shearer added. “It was a bad day to be Bucknell, because she was fired up.”
But Sunday’s game wasn’t smoothing sailing for Temple from the start. The Owls fell behind early when Bucknell’s sophomore forward Abby Watson redirected a pass from junior forward Cassie Lawrence over the head of Temple’s redshirt junior goalkeeper Lizzy Millen five minutes into the game.
That goal was a wakeup call for the Owls.
“We came into today thinking it was going to be a little bit easier than it was,” Doyle said. “Bucknell showed up and brought intensity from the first minute, so we knew after they scored that we needed to match their intensity and surpass it.”
“It was a big wake up call,” coach Amanda Janney said. “We know they’re a hustle team. It was a brilliant goal, I mean it was one of those that were unstoppable. You’ve got to give teams credit like that, people are going to score great goals on us but you can’t let it affect your play and it took us a while to get back into our playing style.”
Temple moved the ball up into the Bucknell’s zone and better established an attack quickly after the team fell behind 1-0.
The Owls still hadn’t recorded a shot, however, but that changed when freshman forward Katie Foran drew a penalty corner while trying to cut in towards the front of the net.
Junior midfielder Nicole Kroener sent the ball in for Doyle to take the shot after Shearer stopped it in front.
Doyle hesitated on the wind up, then hit a slow roller that went under Bucknell senior goalkeeper Erica Perrine to tie it 1-1 with 13:44 left in the first half.
Doyle wasn’t done just yet, though. Nearing the end of the half, on another penalty corner, Doyle received a pass from sophomore midfielder Sarah Deck and sent a shot by Perrine to give Temple the 2-1 lead.
With two goals already, Doyle needed one more goal to complete the hat-trick. She got it with six minutes left in the game, coming off a penalty corner once again.
Millen made two saves in goal on Sunday, including one on a crucial Bucknell penalty corner early in the second half, when she knocked a shot out of the air that could have tied the game.
Temple did what it set out to do by bouncing back with a win. It’s the team’s fifth straight win at home since losing to Maryland opening weekend. The Owls have also yet to lose back-to-back games this season.
“We always talk about, when we do experience a big loss, that we can’t let that team beat us twice,” Shearer said. “We can’t stay down and stay in a rut. I think today we really came out, in the second half at least, and proved that they weren’t going to beat us twice. We’re better than that.”
Nick Tricome can be reached at tue55707@temple.edu or on Twitter @itssnick215.
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