Tricia Light had three career goals before Friday. It took her one game to match that.
“I think it was a pretty good day,” the junior forward said after recording her first hat-trick en route to a 6-1 Temple win.
“I just have to be in the right spots,” Light added. “My teammates were doing everything on their end and just getting great balls on the goal.”
It took just over a minute for Light to find the back of the cage, coming off sophomore midfielder Paige Gross’ fourth assist of the season to give Temple an early 1-0 lead.
“[Tricia] is a hard worker,” coach Amanda Janney said. “It’s nice to see her get on the board in the first minute of the game. We talked a lot about setting a tone and coming out strong, and we’re so pleased for her to get three goals. She’s been doing a great job to gain good position as a left forward and she was in the right place at the right time.”
After junior forward/midfielder Alyssa Delp scored off a rebound in the eighth minute of the 1st half, Light added insurance with an unassisted goal to put the Owls up 3-0.
The Annville, Pennsylvania native, thanks to an assist from Delp, completed the hat-trick in the second half, after senior midfielder and co-captain Nicole Kroener scored on a penalty corner to offset a Rutgers goal by junior forward Nicole Imbriaco.
Midfielder Rachel Mueller wrapped things up in the 54th minute of play, scoring her second goal of the season and Temple’s final of the afternoon. The freshman out of William Tennant High School has racked up two goals and four points coming off the bench in the Owls’ first three games.
“It just shows how much of my hard work is paying off now,” Mueller said of her early impact. “How hard I worked all summer…it really means a lot in that I’m actually doing what I wanted to do.”
Redshirt senior goalkeeper Lizzy Millen made five saves across both of last weekend’s games, and made just as many on Friday alone. She allowed Rutgers’ lone goal by Imbriaco in 50:56 of minding the cage.
Junior Haley Mitchell came in for the last 19:04 of play, making four saves.
The win improves Temple’s all-time record against the Scarlet Knights to 24-11-2, and has given the team the last four decisions.
The Owls (3-0) will fly out to Durham, North Carolina tomorrow for their matchup with No. 4 ranked Duke on Sunday at noon. Temple is 1-8 against the Blue Devils all-time.
Duke is also off to a quick 3-0 start, earning a win on Friday afternoon as well via a 1-0 shutout of No. 7 ranked Princeton. The team went 17-7 last season and made it to the NCAA National Championship game where the Blue Devils fell 2-0 to the University of Connecticut.
Loose notes:
Lizzy Millen was named the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Association’s Defensive Player of the Week two days after earning that same honor from the Big East … Millen had a .833 save percentage by the end of last weekend after a 4-2 win against Northeastern, then a 2-0 shutout of the University of Massachusetts.
– Nicole Kroener earned PhilaFieldHockey.com’s first Student-Athlete of the Week Award. The award is based on academic standing, leadership and performance on the field, and service outside of the classroom. The business major has a 3.7 GPA, worked an internship with TD Bank and managed pick-up field hockey program Field Hockey America’s Summer in the City during the offseason.
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