The women’s field hockey team ran the gamut of emotions last week, blowing out Amherst, 10-0, at home, losing a 3-0 heartbreaker to Duke in New Hampshire, and holding on for a tight, 2-1, home victory against Dartmouth.
Mari Creatini notched her third hat trick of the season, against UMass and picked up another goal versus Dartmouth to extend her nation-leading totals in both goals (19) and points (45). Senior Sara Webber was ranked seventh nationally with 11 assists. Fellow captain Leigh Shea and Creatini were 13th in assists with seven.
The Huskies traveled to UNH to take on the Duke Blue Devils, ranked fourth nationally and in the middle of a northern tour. They hung tough against the national power, but succumbed 3-0.
Missed opportunities was the theme of this contest, as NU couldn’t convert on any of their nine first-half penalty corner opportunities, normally a strong point for the Huskies.
Duke’s Katie Grant scored her first of two goals 9:47 into the game off a crossing pass from Kim Van Kirk.
Momentum seemed to be on the verge of shifting a minute later when Mari Creatini broke in on the goalie, but she had her legs cut out from under her before she could get a shot off. Rather than being awarded a penalty stroke, the Huskies only received a corner.
“That should have been a stroke, no doubt,” said head coach Cheryl Murtagh. “The way (Mari’s) been shooting the ball lately, we would have felt confident (she would score).”
The energy was still going NU’s way, when they pressured the Blue Devils into five straight penalty corners, but couldn’t find the right play to put the ball in the net.
In a tide-turning moment, Duke notched another goal on the counter-attack when Van Kirk slipped behind Northeastern’s defense for the score to put Duke up 2-0.
The Blue Devils put the game out of reach in the second half with a goal on their third corner of the game.
“That’s a game that could’ve been a great win for us, it would have helped out our national ranking,” Murtagh said. “We had our chances, we just couldn’t put them away.”
The Huskies kicked off the week by completely outclassing UMass en route to a 10-0 win, which tied the all-time mark for most goals in a game, set in 1985 against Providence and repeated in ’88 against Yale.
“I feel we have a very strong offense,” said head coach Cheryl Murtagh after the record-tying performance. “We have a lot of people that can put the ball in the net.”
Creatini and Liane Dixon were two of those people, as both forwards notched hat tricks. Redshirt freshman Natalie Singelais had a pair of goals and was inches away from joining the hat trick club in the second half.
Shea also scored on an 18-yard shot that broke through the goalie and Jay Quinn capitalized on a loose ball in front of the net.
Northeastern applied heavy pressure in the UMass defensive end throughout the game. When UMass would finally find a way to extract the ball from their end, it was usually fed right back down the field by the Husky defense, led by captain Melissa Rowell.
By the time the final whistle blew, UMass had failed to take one shot at the net, nevermind forcing goalie Diana Nelson to make a save.
“I’m really happy on the defensive side of the ball,” Murtagh said. “We’ve given teams too many chances to get back in the game.”
“We had a good pre-game discussion about our defense,” said Dixon. “We came out and did what we needed to do, (which was) pressure their defense and take care of fundamentals.”
With 1:40 left in the first half against Dartmouth, Dixon batted the eventual game-winner out of the air and past the near post for the score. The goal was NU’s second of the half, with Creatini tipping home the game’s opening goal on a penalty corner shot from Jay Quinn.
Dartmouth would cut the lead in half in the second frame, but would get no closer as Nelson held down fort with four saves.
After the game Murtagh lauded the play of Ali Bolster and Quinn but pointed out that the Huskies will now have a target on their backs.
They came out hungry and aggressive,” she said. “As a nationally ranked team we have to expect that.”
