The field hockey team suffered through the wrong end of two more shutouts this weekend, dropping the team's record to 0-12 overall (0-4 in the Ivy League). On Saturday, Princeton scored four first-half goals en route to a 5-0 whitewashing of Brown on Warner Roof. Then, the Bears headed north on Sunday to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, where they were blanked, 3-0, by No. 13 Boston University.
On Saturday, Princeton quickly put Brown in a hole by opening with two goals just 88 seconds apart. Candice Arner started the scoring at 5:04 by collecting a rebound and firing a shot that kicked up and over the outstretched leg of starting goaltender Kristen Hodavance '08, and into the cage. The Tigers struck again to take a 2-0 lead when Katie Kinzer charged down the middle of the field and fed Kaitlin Donovan near the right post.
"We came out a little slow," said Head Coach Tara Harrington '94 about the team's early struggles. "I think that having them scoring right away, bang-bang, put us back on our heels a little bit. ... Princeton is fast and very skillful. We had some breakdowns all over the field, and they capitalized all the way."
After Princeton took a three-goal lead with Arner's second goal of the game at 15:45, Lauren Kessler '11 came on to relieve Hodavance at 20:12. Only 28 seconds later, Christina Bortz took a pass from Kinzer on the left side and beat Kessler with a shot to the center of the cage. Princeton took that 4-0 lead into halftime on the strength of a 13-5 advantage in shots.
After a rough first half, impassioned speeches in the halftime huddle inspire the Bears to step up their play.
"We basically laid it on the line that what we did in the first half was not the type of Brown field hockey that we want to play," Harrington said. "The tradition of Brown field hockey has always been a lot of passion and a lot of energy and a lot of fight on that field, (but) we were lacking a little bit of that in the first half. The kids understood that (and) rallied behind that. The seniors got the group together and said, 'We're better than that. We're going to play to the end and we're going to put five goals in.'"
Unfortunately, the Bears were not able to rally back, but they did manage to slow down the Tigers. In the second half, Brown trimmed Princeton's advantage in shots to 8-3, and even managed to hold a 4-2 advantage in penalty corners, though it could not convert any of them into goals. Kessler made five second-half saves and surrendered only one goal, when Kinzer scored on a rebound at 41:20 to notch her fourth point of the game.
Harrington attributed the improved level of play in the second half to the team's increased intensity and better teammate support. She said three seniors stood out in that respect.
"Sandhya Dhir ('08), Andrea Posa ('08) and Ani Kazarian ('08) played really hard today," she said. "I'm proud of their efforts. All three of them in the second half really stepped up the energy (and) intensity level. (They) played with a lot of heart and went after every ball. I think that their efforts sparked the rest of the team to climb on their backs and rise to the occasion and play to that level."
Brown hoped to carry over the effort from that second half into Sunday's game against BU, but the 13th-ranked team in the nation proved too powerful in the Bears' 3-0 loss. The Terriers converted a 24-3 advantage in shots and a 14-1 advantage in penalty corners into a 3-0 win over the Bears.
Sarah Shute opened the scoring for BU with a goal at 21:42, then tallied an assist on Hayley Hamada's goal 1:42 later that gave the Terriers a 2-0 lead it took into halftime. Shute scored her second goal of the game at 47:29 on a corner with an assist from Hadley Adams to produce the final margin.
Kessler made 10 saves, Victoria Sacco '09 added a defensive save, and Kazarian led the team with two shots.
"We're certainly going to work on playing harder in the first half, without getting in a hole, and being confident in what we're doing," Harrington said. "And never quitting, never giving up. Just moving forward for 70 minutes."
After struggling through two tough games over the weekend, the Bears will look to turn things around when they travel to Ithaca, N.Y. to face the Big Red of Cornell (6-5, 3-2 Ivy) on Sunday.
"Our philosophy is that we will play every second (and) every inch," Harrington said.