By Andy MacDougall, News Staff
Star players may have given way to youth and the overall record may have fallen short of expectation, but at the end of the day, the Northeastern field hockey team ended up right where they were supposed to be.
Entering the Colonial Athletic Association’s (CAA) field hockey tournament, the Huskies sat at 8-13 overall. With only the best 16 teams in the country clinching berths to the NCAA field hockey tournament, the Huskies were facing a “win-out” scenario to collect the team’s third-consecutive NCAA appearance.
Looking for the team’s first CAA Championship, Northeastern picked up a spirited, 2-0 win over Drexel University in the conference semifinals, but host University of Delaware upended the Huskies in the CAA Championship game, 5-1.
“I’m really proud of the team,” coach Cheryl Murtagh said. “As I told them, a lot of teams didn’t make it that far in the tournament in our conference. We got in it, they competed, and they weren’t just happy with that. They had a good win to get to the final.”
Northeastern and Drexel have been involved in some recent thrillers, including last fall’s CAA championship game. In search of their first CAA crown, the Huskies took on Drexel on the Dragons’ home pitch with the CAA championship on the line, but Northeastern was bested by a score of 2-1.
Earlier this fall, Northeastern got the best of the then No. 19 Dragons, concluding a five-game home stand with a 1-0 victory over Drexel. Junior co-captain Caroline Judge collected the game-winner at 19:03.
The two teams met again Friday night, and Northeastern proved that the win in October was no fluke. After a scoreless first half in which both teams collected three shots on net, Northeastern collected the game-winner at 48:22. Junior forward Kelly Dunn redirected a shot from freshman Natalie Stewart that snuck behind Drexel goalie Jantien Gunter. The goal was Dunn’s third of the season and put the Huskies on top, 1-0.
Northeastern added to its lead four minutes later as freshman Emmy Zweserijn tallied a goal off a penalty corner. The goal was Zweserijn’s eighth of the season, with Judge and Dunn collecting the assists. From there, the Huskies held off a late flurry from Drexel for the 2-0 win.
With the victory, Northeastern advanced to its third consecutive CAA Championship match.
“Drexel is a good team and we have a lot of respect for them,” Murtagh said. “We knew we beat them once, but it was only 1-0. The fact that the team came out and played better than they did the first time was really gratifying and I’m just really proud of the team and the way they did that.”
Facing the top-seeded Blue Hens, the Huskies found themselves in a two-goal hole within the game’s first five minutes. Esmee Peet put the Blue Hens on the board just 54 seconds into the match with a goal off a penalty corner. Two minutes later, Kasey Prettyman padded the lead after tipping a penalty corner into the back of the cage.
Delaware took a 3-0 lead midway through the first half as Maddie O’Beirne buried a penalty corner of her own. The Blue Hens pushed their halftime advantage to four behind a Meghan Winesett goal that came 22 seconds before the break.
Michaela Patzner stretched the Delaware lead to 5-0 as she rifled a rebound into the open net from 12-yards out. It wasn’t until the 63:32 mark that Northeastern notched its lone goal of the game. Senior forward Lindsay Bennett tucked a ball inside the right corner off an assist from sophomore midfielder Zoe Kale. But it was the Blue Hens who celebrated in front of their home crowd, as Delaware finished the season a perfect 8-0 against its CAA foes.
“Everyone was doubting us this year with us having such a young team,” Bennett said, “and to see that we were basically in the same position as we were last year [in the CAA finals] with such an older class, it was a nice feeling that our hard work did pay off.”
The evening before the tournament began, several Huskies were noted for their performance both on and off the pitch at the league’s annual awards banquet. Stewart collected All-CAA First Team honors and joined fellow freshmen Becky Garner and Jessica Unger on the All-Rookie Team. Unger and senior co-captain Lindsay Bennett picked up Second Team honors, while Bennett also received recognition as a member of the All-Academic Team.
The three All-Rookie selections are Northeastern’s most since joining the CAA in 2005.
With the season now over, Murtagh and the Huskies begin to look forward to 2014. Growing faster and stronger as a team is something that can’t be completed overnight, and the process of returning to national prominence is the first step towards competing for the school’s first national title.
“Our goal is to win an NCAA Championship,” Murtagh said. “We talked about it yesterday. We know how hard it is to get there, and we won’t take that for granted, but [the goal is] to get to the tournament and to win it.”
