The Dartmouth field hockey team, led by senior Kristen Scopaz's two goals and one assist, extended its win streak to three games yesterday by easily defeating the University of Vermont by the score of 4-0. The home win improved the 18th ranked Big Green to a record of 8-4, while Vermont fell to 1-12 on the season.
Dartmouth was unable to score in the first half, due to the impressive play of Vermont goalkeeper Holly Colberg who had 14 first half saves. Dartmouth outshot Vermont 22-2 in the first 35 minutes of the game.
Carolyn Steele '03 put the Big Green in the lead to stay with a goal at the 31:37 mark in the second half. Kim Jenkin '02 sent a penalty corner to Scopaz who set the ball for the assist to Steele.
Scopaz scored her first goal of the game 1:28 later, rifling a shot past Colberg off a great feed by Jenkin.
Lauren Scopaz '00 put Dartmouth up 3-0 when she converted a Kristin Barlup '02 assist at the 3:44 mark. With that goal, Scopaz is now only 7 points shy of her 100th career point.
"I'm definitely excited to be nearing my 100th career point," Scopaz said. "I didn't even know about that until today. It's hard to think about it though because field hockey is such a team sport, that my first and foremost concern is winning as a team, whoever scores. There's more incentive to make a mark on Dartmouth field hockey."
Kristen Scopaz had the last goal of the game when she connected on an unassisted shot with only 31 seconds left in the game.
Dartmouth goalkeeper Brittany D'Augustine '01 had one save. Kirsten Anderson '02 came on in relief for the last 2:37 of the game. This was the sixth shutout for the Dartmouth keepers this season.
"Overall we had a great team performance today," Lauren Scopaz said. "We generated some great offense in both halves, starting from our backs who stepped up and smothered their attack. All of our goals were true team efforts."
The Big Green's next match is this Saturday at 1:00 p.m., when they face a test against Cornell University at home.
Cornell is 6-4 overall and has an impressive 3-1 Ivy League record.
"I think if we come out strong from the start and play like we know we can, we will do great against Cornell," said Lauren Scopaz. "I have complete confidence that we can dominate the game, if we play with all out intensity."
