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Bears encouraged despite pair of losses

Team takes lessons from defeats, aspires to end season with Ivy League Championship

The women’s field hockey team’s season got off to an inauspicious start with losses to Ball State University and No. 12 Louisville this past weekend. A hot start in the first half against Ball State was canceled out by a late overtime goal while the Bears (0-2) were overmatched by Louisville from the start.


Brown came out flying against Ball State, accruing three shots in the opening 10 minutes — two from Jaclyn Torres ’17, a Herald arts and culture editor, and one from Lucy Green ’17. But the Cardinals managed to sneak the first goal past netminder Katie Hammaker ’19.


Bruno continued to dominate offensively but was not able to score until the 31st minute, when Maggie Mostoller ’18 got her first collegiate goal. Zoey Miller ’20 and Leah Zavalick ’17 fired off two shots before Mostoller finished the rebound and got the Bears on the board for the first time this year.


“It was an exciting first half,” said captain Katarina Angus ’17. “I’ve never seen a team come out that strong to start the season. We were aggressive and excited.”


The second half’s shot total was the reverse of the first half, as Ball State took five shots to Brown’s zero. But the Bears’ defense held and the game went into overtime, in which it took 11 minutes and 52 seconds before Ball State finished the game off with a strike from the top of the circle. The Bears fell 2-1 despite outshooting the Cardinals 12-10 for the whole game.


“We just need to work on that finishing and being able to handle our nerves and our excitement,” Angus said. “It’ll come for us.”


But the Bears did not open their second game of the weekend as well as the first, with Louisville scoring less than four minutes in and doubling its lead 13 minutes later. After making four saves against Ball State, Hammaker faced an onslaught of Louisville shots and made an impressive nine saves.


After the Cardinals scored a third goal in the beginning of the second half, Green tallied her first goal of the year to give Brown a glimmer of hope. Three years ago, when Angus was a first-year, the Bears beat a top 10-ranked Louisville team at its field.


But this time was different, as the Cardinals scored a fourth two minutes later and a fifth one minute after that. Louisville tacked on two goals late in the second half to bring the score to its 7-1 final.


“The score was disappointing,” Angus said. “We realized when we went back and watched the video that we needed to take care of the ball well, but I don’t think the scoreline reflected how we played in that game.”


The two losses were the first of a five-game set of nonconference games before the Bears welcome Columbia for their first Ivy League tilt of the season.


“We set our goal before the season to win the Ivy championship,” Angus said. “It’s been the first time in a while that we’re all on the same page with that.”

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