The Owls field hockey team suffered a 2-1 loss last Sunday to the Richmond Spiders (3-0), dropping their record to 0-2 in Atlantic 10 Conference play.
The Owls overall record is 7-8, but they’re looking forward to improving their play to make a run at the A-10 title.
The team has dropped seven games to tough teams such as Penn State, Iowa, and North Carolina.
Temple, however, must come up big in the A-10 if it wants to keep its hopes of going to the NCAA tournament alive.
On paper, it appears the Owls do have enough talent to make a run at an NCAA tournament berth.
Junior Rachel Kasper started 17 games as a sophomore and is doing a solid job this season for the Owls.
In 15 games, she has three goals, two assists and is tied for second on the team in points with teammate Haley Dervinis with eight.
“There really isn’t a problem with our play,” Kasper said.
“We just aren’t getting the ball in the net like we need to.”
There was much disappointment after a loss to LaSalle in the A-10 opener.
The Explorers ended the Owls five-game winning streak with a 1-0 win.
Temple out-shot LaSalle 18-6 and led 22-0 in penalty corners.
The numbers just didn’t add up.
“We’re all really positive still,” Kasper said.
“We know we can win games, and coach [Lauren Fuchs] is still positive as well.
We’re just going to leave the other games behind us, and try to win out the rest of the games to get into the A-10 tournament.”
“I think the game against Richmond could have gone either way. They just happened to put the ball in the net more than we did. It was a great game,” Kasper added.
“We’re just going to work our butts off and see what happens. Sometimes you cannot control the way a game turns out, but we would like to see the next four games as W’s on our schedule.”
The Owls still must square off against tough teams for the rest of the schedule, namely West Chester, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and city rival St. Joe’s before they can begin their journey to the A-10 championship.
“We’ve been playing pretty consistently,” she said.
“We need to capitalize on more opportunities.”
David Gunning can be reached at psgunn11@yahoo.com.
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