With less than four minutes and the score locked at one left in the Owls’ game Friday against Georgetown University at Geasey Field, senior forward Tricia Light received the ball on the left side of the field the Hoyas’ 25-yard line with open space in front of her.
She looked up, took a couple dribbles, and slapped the ball in front of the cage, squeezing it through traffic to senior midfielder Erin Van Horn for the go-ahead tip-in goal.
“I just kind of broke out and I saw that there was a lot of open space in the circle,” Light said. “So you kind of just need to lay it out and do what you have to do to get it in there. Luckily, one of my teammates was there and put it away. That’s what we need to do.”
Temple found the back of the net first in its 3-1 defeat of Georgetown on Senior Day, marking the squad’s second straight Big East Conference win. In the 12th minute of the first half, senior Alyssa Delp tallied her 10th goal of the season off of a penalty corner opportunity.
Both teams held each other scoreless for the rest of the half. The Hoyas produced two shots and four penalty corners in the first period, while the Owls tallied nine shots and five penalty corners.
Georgetown scored just more than six minutes into the second half on a penalty corner opportunity.
After the goal, the Hoyas didn’t get many more offensive chances. Temple controlled the ball for much of the half, producing 20 shots in the period, in addition to 13 penalty corners.
Those chances finally paid off when Van Horn scored the go-ahead tally in the 67th minute.
“We had the determination to keep pushing forward and wanting to get more goals, which has definitely been our struggle,” senior backer Taylor Shronk said. “We got a lot of shots on cage, we [have] people in the right places, but we just have to get that next step and finish it. Other than that, it was great to keep all of our momentum going forward.”
Redshirt-freshman forward Maris Stern pushed the lead to 3-1 on a breakaway open-net score with just more than one minute left in the game.
Although coach Marybeth Freeman was happy with the win, she would’ve liked to see her team capitalize on more of its offensive chances.
“Twenty-nine [shots] is a terrific number to have, and I think that we did a really good job of creating scoring chances for us,” Freeman said. “Now, it’s focusing on the small, intricate details of looking up earlier or placement of the ball or even keeping the ball on our stick versus trying to take a back swing. We will continue to work on the little things like that, and that, I think, will increase our goals.”
With the conference victory, the Owls move into a tie for third place in the Big East with Villanova. The two teams will meet at Villanova on Halloween at noon.
Matt Cockayne can be reached via email at matt.cockayne@temple.edu and on twitter at mattcockayne55.
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