Field
Hockey Makes Earlham, Denison Quake
By Blake Wilder The
Oberlin College field hockey team has taken their game to the next
level and shown evidence that they have indeed improved.
This week they added back-to-back wins. The first came on Saturday
in a 2-0 victory over Earlham College; on Wednesday they added the
second in a 2-1 overtime victory against Denison, who had defeated
Oberlin 2-1 earlier this season. The Yeowomen now have a record
of 6-3 overall and 5-3 in the conference.
The Yeowomen shook the Quakers to their foundation as they came
out in top form to control most of the action of the game.
“We played our best game of the season on Saturday,”
head coach Deb Ranieri said. “Everyone was in good position.
Passing was down. We really pressured well defensively. We came
up with some interceptions. [The team] did everything they were
supposed to.”
Although Earlham did have some attacking chances throughout the
game, Oberlin played well defensively and remained in control.
In the first half, Oberlin took the lead with a goal from first-year
Christine Castilla off of an outside shot.
“[Castilla] had the most beautiful goal ever,” first-year
Rosemary Mudry said.
The Yeowomen’s second goal came on a penalty corner in the
second half when sophomore Jaime Johnson assisted senior Chaney
Stewman.
On Wednesday, the Yeowomen didn’t play as well; in fact, the
beginning of the Denison game gave the gathering of fans something
to worry about, as the Big Red came out firing and put the Yeowomen
under pressure for the first 10 to 15 minutes. They managed to get
four penalty corners and it looked as if they would repeat their
victory from earlier in the season.
“[Wednesday] we were crowding each other and were a little
a frazzled on the field,” Ranieri said. “When we did
score and when we did have some corners, we did what we were supposed
to, but it wasn’t that pretty.”
However, sophomore Jaime Johnson took matters into her own hands,
as she forced a turnover and carried the ball up the right side
into the attacking third of the field. She then cut between two
defenders to draw the foul and allow the rest of the Yeowomen to
catch up.
Oberlin was not instantly successful, but over the next 10 minutes
they fought a hard battle in the midfield and began to show their
dominance on the ball. Their pressure resulted in two penalty corners,
and the Yeowomen got off some good shots.
The play moved back into midfield but Oberlin didn’t allow
Denison to organize the attack. Oberlin managed to reorganize their
own attack and pressed back into the attacking third of the field
drawing two more penalty corners.
On the second penalty corner senior Briana Quinn managed a powerful
shot straight at the goalkeeper. Senior Nana Uemura passed the rebound
to first-year Meg Reitz who put the ball in the back into the cage
to put the Yeowomen up 1-0 with under 10 minutes to go in the half.
Denison pressed hard from the restart, driving deep in Oberlin’s
defensive territory. Senior Christina Congelton took the ball in
the back and escorted it to the sideline, displaying superior ball-handling
skills as she forced Denison’s player to knock the ball out,
winning Oberlin the side-in.
Unfortunately, a mis-hit on the restart gave the possession back
to Denison and again they pressed the attack. Congelton again took
the ball to the sideline and won the side-in, but this time she
took the restart herself and jump started Oberlin into the midfield
where the action would stay for the rest of the half.
The Big Red came out even stronger in the second half. In the first
10 minutes, they won eight penalty corners off of the Oberlin defense.
“We just couldn’t get the ball out of the circle,”
Quinn said. “We were preventing them from taking a shot, but
we weren’t being clean enough to get the ball out without
getting another foul called against us.”
Luckily, Denison was unable to stop the ball properly, so they were
not able to take advantage of their numbers.
“If you can’t stop the ball, you can’t get the
shot off,” Ranieri said. “Thankfully they were having
some problems doing that.”
When Denison
did get a clean shot off, first-year goalkeeper Siv Tang made an
excellent save, knocking the ball down with her glove before clearing
it out with her feet. Then much like in the first half the play
got stuck in the midfield as neither team could build an organized
attack.
With about 12 minutes left in the game, Denison began to push back
into the offensive area and managed to win several penalty corners,
but they continued to be plagued with problems of stopping the ball.
With eight minutes left, they got another good shot off, but again
Tang shut it down.
However, two minutes later Tang was less successful as Denison managed
to put the ball in the back of the cage, equalizing the score.
Oberlin took a timeout to reorganize but wasn’t able to put
together a strong enough attack to get back on top.
Once again Dension came out on the attack, but Oberlin made quick
work in picking apart their offense and building one of their own.
The Yeowomen’s pressure resulted in yet another penalty corner.
Quinn cranked a shot in from outside the arc that rebounded off
the keeper and Reitz put it in.
The Yeowomen
continue conference play tomorrow when they travel to Wittenberg
University and Monday when they host Ohio Wesleyan University at
4:30 p.m. |