Turnovers were one of the things that cost the Owls in a 7-4 loss to LaSalle.
On Sunday, turnovers hurt them again.
Temple lost to Cornell 17-9 in its first road game of the year, finishing the week 1-2 after weather pushed back the start of the Owls season and laid out a schedule that had them play three games in six days.
Turnovers aren’t the only problem that has hurt the Owls.
The season is still young, but in each of Temple’s first three games, the team has had trouble getting established in the first half.
In the opener against St. Joe’s, the Owls fell into a 5-3 hole in the first half, but were able to come back and tie it up before halftime.
Against LaSalle, they also fell into a two-goal deficit, but were able to cut the lead down to one before the end of the first.
This time around, the Owls struggled to keep pace.
“We got into a hole,” coach Bonnie Rosen said. “And as we got into that hole, we got tentative.”
Three goals by sophomore attacker Rachel Schwaab, who scored back-to-back within the first 10 minutes, and sophomore midfielder Nicole Tiernan matched the two goals scored by Cornell’s junior attacker Lindsay Toppe and another by senior attacker Rachel Moody to tie the game up with 16:38 left in the first.
But Toppe scored a minute later to complete the hat-trick and give Cornell a 4-3 lead. The Big Red didn’t look back from there.
Cornell went on a streak of 11 unanswered goals that lasted into the first five minutes of the second half. Moody added three more goals during that stretch to give herself four goals for the day and would add one more late in the second to complete a five-goal game.
Toppe also tacked on two more goals and freshman attacker Catherine Ellis scored two, adding two more goals late in the game, for the both of them to complete four-goal games.
Senior midfielder Amanda D’Amico, junior midfielder Sarah Hefner and senior midfielder Chelsea Rowe also scored during Cornell’s 11-goal unanswered run, with D’Amico scoring two.
Senior attacker Jaymie Tabor finally answered with a goal six and a half minutes into the second, but by then, the Owls found themselves down 14-4.
Tabor would go on to complete a hat-trick, and sophomore midfielder Megan Tiernan and freshman midfielder Anna Frederick added goals to pull within six.
Nicole Tiernan scored her second goal of the game with eight seconds left, but only after Moody and Ellis gave Cornell three more goals.
Temple will have nearly a week before they return home to play Oregon on Saturday. The Owls will get ready for a road-trip to Colorado from there, where they will face Colorado on Tuesday and Denver on Saturday.
But right now, the Owls are going one game at a time, especially because of the timing of these next couple weeks.
“Will be trying to get the most out of each practice this week,” Rosen said. “With it being the week before spring break, there’s a lot of pressure academically right now.”
Nick Tricome can be reached at nick.tricome@temple.edu or on Twitter @itssnick215.
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