The field hockey team suffered a 6-1 loss against cross-city rival No. 20 Providence College (13-7 overall) on Tuesday. The Friars defrocked the Bears with a relentless attack that produced advantages of 21-15 in shots, 17-6 in shots-on-goal and 11-9 in penalty corners. The loss drops Brown to 0-16 on the year with one game remaining.
"PC is a very fast, aggressive attacking team," said Head Coach Tara Harrington '94. "When we didn't transition from attack to defense (and) organize quickly, they definitely capitalized upon it. ... Going into the game, we talked to the team about protecting our defensive circle and trying hard not to give up corners to PC because their corner unit is tremendous. Unfortunately, we fell out of that a little bit. We gave up corners we shouldn't have given up and didn't make the simple adjustments we needed to make."
The Friars scored two pairs of goals in quick succession early on. After the teams traded four-shot barrages in the first 10 minutes, Michalagh Stoddard put PC on the board at 11:59, and Adrienne Marois extended the lead 2:29 later. Brown kept Providence off the board for nearly 13 minutes after that, before Nellie Poulin found the back of the cage at 27:10 to give the Friars a 3-0 lead, then tallied an assist on Ashlyn Hudson's goal 1:52 later.
The Bears broke through 1:45 later on a goal by Tacy Zysk '11 to trim the Friars' lead to 4-1. After a penalty corner, Victoria Sacco '09 took a shot that PC goalie Rachel Chamberlain stopped. The rebound came to Zysk, who pushed the ball into the goal for her second goal of the year before Chamberlain could kick it away. Harrington and Zysk agreed that the goal gave the team's confidence a boost.
"We've always had the philosophy that, no matter how much time is left on the clock, we're fighting," Harrington said. "We have faith that we can find a way to put that ball in the goal. That was a little bit of a lift that I think we needed for our morale at that moment."
"It felt like we might be able to chip away at the lead that they had already established," Zysk said. "It kind of rejuvenated us before halftime."
Kristen Hodavance '08 replaced Lauren Kessler '11 in goal at the beginning of the second half and made four saves before Poulin tallied her second goal of the game 3:53 into the half. At 46:46, Marois scored her second goal of the game, and Jessica Lane picked up her third assist to give PC a 6-1 lead, but Brown was much more effective in slowing down the Providence attack in the second half. Hodavance finished with seven saves, and the Friars took only one more shot after their final goal.
Brown, meanwhile, suffered through offensive droughts because of the strength of PC's attack.
"There were times that we really struggled to get the ball out of our backfield with possession," Harrington said. "We were stringing two passes together, but then that next pass would be an interception by Providence College (and) would be coming right back into our defensive end. ... Basically, their whole defensive unit, their whole team, was on the attack. ... (But) once we did get it behind their (attack), we did have opportunities to get it to the cage."
After taking only two shots in the first 27 minutes of the second half, the Bears broke through for six in the final eight minutes, but backup Friars goalie Kim Vesling made four saves to keep the Bears out of the cage.
"That was very frustrating," Zysk said about not being able to score. "Andrea Posa ('08) had some beautiful shots that by some awful chance of luck just didn't go in. It was really frustrating that the ball was not bouncing the right way."
But Zysk knows that the Bears can't afford to wallow in defeat. They have to move on before they face Yale on Saturday in New Haven in their final game of the season.
"You have to remember the good points of what you did well and let go of the points at which we kind of lost it and didn't have our stuff together," she said. "We're not playing Providence anymore. The game is in the past. We have to concentrate on who are Yale's key players, what formations do they play, what are their corners are like. We just have to completely concentrate on Yale."
