The West Chester field hockey team had a rough week, falling three times to three great Universities; but they never gave up. The teams first loss, to the University of North Carolina, last year’s champions, was nothing at all to hang your head over; it was an outstanding performance.Battling not only the vast skill of the UNC players, many of which participated in the Olympics less then a month ago, but the 94 degree heat, hotter on the field, West Chester put up a fantastic fight, holding the Tar Heels to only three goals. The girls commented on how UNC was really frustrated out on the field that they couldn’t score or keep it in the box.
The Golden Rams put up a great fight, going into the half down only 1-0, still very much alive in the game against the team that had dominated Penn State only a day before in a four goal shutout. Two goals in the second half would seal the deal in the end though for UNC. The goal keeper, Joelle Zarefoss with 19 saves on the day.
Wednesday night West Chester lost a heartbreaker against Rider University, 3-2. They endured a rough first half, losing 3-0 and only getting off one shot the entire half. With less then eleven minutes left in the game, WCU received a burst of energy, making a final attempt at the victory. With 10:25 left on the clock, Marisa Holzman scored West Chester’s first goal to give the team a boost of encouragement and narrow the gap to 3-1. A minute and a half later, Desiree Walker scored on a corner to make it a one goal game. This was all the girls had left though, as their late surge of nine shots and eight corners was stopped by the opposing keeper. Brittany Cislak made one last hard attempt with under two minutes left in the game, but was unable to capitalize. The hard charging Rams would walk off the field with a 3-3 record.
The girls last game of the week took place Friday afternoon at Towson. Here, the girls fell in a disappointing 5-0 loss.
While this next week brings a bit of a break, with only one game next Sunday, the girls will first have to get by last year’s national runner up, Penn State. West Chester saw the Nittany Lions play last weekend against UNC, but need to improve on this past week’s performance to be a contender on Sunday.
Ryan Frisco is a second-year student majoring in communication studies with a minor in journalism. He can be reached at RF648257@wcupa.edu.