By Eric Creamer
It’s funny how some things turn out.
The Northeastern field hockey team, ranked eighth in the nation, crushed 15th-ranked UCal-Berkeley on Friday night, 6-0, but were upset by an upstart Maine team Sunday, 2-1, in overtime. Coach Cheryl Murtagh said that there was an immense difference in her team’s mental preparation between the two games.
“Maine came out hyped up, and they were on fire,” said Murtagh. “They are a scrappy team. It was a disappointing loss. If we can be as consistent as we were against Cal, then we’ll be successful. We need to have the same mental toughness that Maine had.”
NU, now 13-3 on the season and 2-1 in the America East, lost for the first time to a conference opponent in eleven tries. The Huskies seemingly outplayed the Black Bears, but they were now able to convert on their chances. Maine scored on the only two shots they took in the game.
“We need to finish,” Murtagh said. “We had 18 penalty corners and Maine only had four. That’s the kind of game field hockey is sometimes. We needed to put them away and we could have.”
Mari Creatini put NU up 1-0 at halftime with an unassisted goal, but Maine’s Rachel Hilgar answered with a tying goal in the second half off of an assist from Tara Bedard. With four minutes left in overtime, Bedard ended it with a the game-winning goal. NU outshot Maine, 13-2.
It was a completely different story against the Golden Bears of UCal-Berkeley. Northeastern utterly dominated them on offense and defense, and it looked as if the score could have been worse than 6-0.
“Teams will be looking to us as a team to beat,” said Broderick last week. “We don’t really care about that. We just want to win.”
Murtagh said that the way they played against the Golden Bears is the way they should approach every game.
“The Cal game was great,” she said. “We played extremely well. Cal has a good offense, and I think that we did a good job on them defensively. That was a great performance.”
NU controlled play from the beginning, and UCal-Berkeley never had a chance to get back into the game. Leigh Shea drove down field after 10 minutes of play and dumped the ball off to a wide open Liane Dixon. Dixon sent the shot into the cage for the goal, and everything opened up from there.
For much of the first half, the Golden Bears had a difficult time getting the ball past midfield as the NU defense swarmed all over them. NU’s next goal came when Fior Arrindell sent a blast off of a rebound into the net.
After the goal, things spiraled downward for the visitors.
The Huskies received two penalty corners right before halftime, and they responded immediately. Shea set the ball up, and Arrindell passed the ball to Dixon near the front of the goal. Dixon then scored an easy goal to go up, 3-0.
Broderick later scored on the next corner to give the Huskies an insurmountable 4-0 lead at halftime.
“We know that we can score goals, so we need to use that and make adjustments,” Murtagh said. “We have to be prepared every game; not just for big games.”
In the second half, Maureen Connelly opened by breaking away from the Cal defense and put on the jets. She went untouched for a one-on-one opportunity with the goalkeeper, and slid the ball past her for another goal. Dixon would later score her third goal of the game to finish out the scoring.
NU outshot UCal-Berkeley, 24-3, and goalkeeper Emily Roy only had to make one save in yet another shutout for the Huskies.
“We need to continue to be hungry for every game,” Broderick said. “We want to do what we need to do to win. Any team can beat you on any given day, but things will depend on the team attitude and work ethic.”
The Huskies return to action when they play on Saturday against New Hampshire at 1 p.m.
“We need to regroup,” Murtagh said. “We’re going to get back to the fundamentals. We need to be confident, but not overly so.”
