The field hockey team fell to Cornell University 3-0 in its final home game of the year on Saturday. The loss was Dartmouth’s 10th of the season, bringing its overall record to 7-10 and its Ivy record to 3-4. Despite a hard-fought first half, the Big Green allowed three goals in the second, putting the team in a difficult position to win.
“We got better as the game went on,” co-captain Jenn Weissbach ’14 said. “But when you get down into a 3-0 hole, it’s hard to get out of that.”
Dartmouth and Cornell (10-7, 4-3 Ivy) both entered Saturday’s game with identical Ivy records.
“It was a home game that was up for grabs,” Weissbach said. “Unfortunately, we didn’t play our best.”
Both teams had four shots in the first period, with Eliza Becker ’16 and co-captain Olivia Quaglia ’14 tallying two a piece.
“In the first half I thought we played fairly well,” head coach Amy Fowler said. “We did some things well, but we didn’t always help ourselves.”
With the score tied at zero after the first period, the Big Green went into the second with confidence.
“We went into halftime talking about some minor changes that we needed to make in the second half,” Fowler said. “Unfortunately for us, we didn’t shift forward, we downshifted a bit and things just weren’t clicking for us.”
Cornell came out firing in the second period, scoring its first goal 1:52 into the period and its next goal 44 seconds later. The Big Red controlled the game for much of the second period, keeping Dartmouth from getting off a shot until 17 minutes in.
“I don’t think we played our game today,” Weissbach said. “I think we got kind of sucked more into their game.”
Forward Ali Savage ’15 helped get the Big Green back into the action with three shots in three minutes, but before the team managed to score again, Cornell took back the momentum with a goal at 59:46.
“I think we kind of kicked it into gear and got really hungry,” Quaglia said. “We really wanted to get some points on the board, which unfortunately we weren’t able to do.”
Dartmouth regained control for the last 10 minutes of the game, but was unable to convert any shots into goals.
“We had our opportunities in the attacking zone, but we weren’t able to finish,” Weissbach said. “We were just missing some connection passes.”
The Big Green finished the game with 13 shots, of which five were on goal, compared with Cornell’s 16 shots and 10 shots on goal.
“We didn’t play totally poorly,” Fowler said. “I just think that Cornell was more consistent in the game, and that lent itself to things working for them. We did some good things defensively, we had some challenges on the attacking side, but we were a little bit disconnected.”
As Saturday’s game was the last of the season, it was also senior day, and the six members of the Class of 2014 were recognized in a post-match ceremony.
“It was pretty emotional,” Weissbach said. “You’ve been on such an incredible ride with the rest of your senior class, and the end of the game signifies that it’s all coming to an end, but I couldn’t imagine being with any other girls to go through four years with.”
Fowler had high praise for the departing seniors.
“They brought a lot to the field, to the program in terms of skill, but more importantly they’ve just been a really good class,” she said.
Overall, the team has been happy with its play this season.
“Statistically, it didn’t turn out the way we wanted, but the team was great, the seniors were awesome, and we’ll get better next year,” Weissbach said.
Despite a losing record, the group still feels it progressed.
“I definitely think how the latter half of the season went just showed how we wanted to challenge ourselves to be better, and challenge ourselves to take more calculated risks and just really go for it,” Quaglia said.
