The AU field hockey team won their eighth-straight Patriot League title with a League tournament record of 14 goals.
The Eagles defeated Colgate University in the semifinal round 8-1, and Lafayette College in the final 6-2.
AU secured home field advantage on Oct. 30 in a game also against Lafayette, winning 3-1, the Eagles were confident heading into the tournament this weekend.
“The playoffs are a totally new second season and we were happy we were hosting,” Head Coach Steve Jennings said. “But we’re going to have to go out and defend our home turf and we were really determined and focused to come out and get the job done.”
Colgate
The Eagles opened the tournament on Nov. 5, taking on Colgate University and systematically broke its opponent down. After a second-minute goal scored by senior Christine Fingerhuth, the Eagle offense caught and fire and didn’t let up.
AU dominated the pace of play, knocking 21 shots to Colgate’s one in the first half and hitting five goals into the box by the end of the first half.
The second half was no different, with AU continuing to string passes together, led by Anne van Erp, who scored three more goals. The Eagles outshot Colgate 44 to 3 for the game.
“We just got in really good scoring positions,” Jennings said. “We were aggressive and we just really wanted to make a statement and really get everybody on the back foot right away.”
Lafayette
In the final, the Eagles still laid the attack on early against the Leopards. AU got an early boost when junior Melissa Casale scored off a pass from Fingerhuth in the seventh minute of play.
“We really wanted to make a statement in the first few minutes, so it was great that we immediately got a goal,” Casale said. “I think it was definitely a thing we built off of for the rest of the game.”
Fingerhuth got her own goal minutes later, scoring on a deflection into the top shelf from a rocket of a shot from senior Kirstin Gebhart.
While the offensive production waned for the remainder of the first half, the team knew that it needed to score again to get a safe lead.
“We knew that 2-0 is the most dangerous score in field hockey,” Fingerhuth said. “So we knew we had to score another goal.”
Freshman Lotte van de Mierop slipped a deflection off a Gina Hofmann shot past the goalkeeper, Kelsey Andersen, just over a minute into the second half.
Lafayette’s Haley Keenan swept a shot past goalkeeper Hannah Weitzman to draw within two goals again until AU started to pound goals in. Natalie Ellenberger started the rally in the 45th minute poking a loose ball in.
Jenn Bradley drove down the baseline and snuck a shot past Andersen, and Hofmann slammed a shot in the net to round out AU’s scoring.
“The goals were scored by multiple people,” Fingerhuth said. “So that shows that we were passing the ball really well and we gave everyone a chance.”
AU outshot Lafayette, 19-8, and Fingerhuth was given the MVP honors of the tournament. Casale was the leading goal-scorer on the team with three in the tournament.
The Eagles will play a NCAA play-in game against Kent State University at 1 p.m. on Tuesday Nov. 9th.
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