The Golden Rams field hockey team continued their journey to make it back to the playoffs this Wednesday, Oct. 17 against PSAC rival Millersville University.
Coming into this matchup, West Chester University was ranked fourth in the National Field Hockey Coaches Association (NFHCA) Division II national poll, with a 8–3 record and a 3–1 record in conference play. Millersville, on the other hand, was ranked 10th and sported a similar 8–4 record, but were only 2–3 in conference play.
These teams have a storied history with each other, as the all-time record between the two gives WCU the slight advantage in wins with 14 compared to 10 for Millersville.
All of these matchups have been remarkably close, as evidenced by the 2–1 victory that WCU picked up the last time they played back in 2022. The largest margin of defeat in those 14 games had only been four goals, and that was all the way back in 2012.
Both of these teams have been led by high-powered offenses this year while being complimented by stingy defense.
On one end, the Golden Rams average 2.73 goals per game while allowing 1.45 to the opposition. Millersville has been doing even better in this regard as they average 2.75 goals while only allowing a miniscule 0.83 to opposing teams.
The biggest advantage that West Chester had going into this game was junior forward Jasmine Miller. Miller was just named the PSAC Field Hockey Athlete of the Week for the third time due to her showings against Shippensburg University and Frostburg State, in which she contributed four of the team’s five total goals. This pushed her total to 16 goals scored in the year, only one goal behind the national leader.
Unfortunately for West Chester, that high-powered offense was put to a halt by the stingy defense of Millersville as they lost 1–0 in this conference matchup. Both defenses came to play in a defensive slugfest that was determined by Millersville’s sophomore forward Emma Ruley scoring her third goal of the year in the second quarter. The bright side of this matchup is that WCU exhibited why they are always going to be such a hard team to beat for future opponents. Even when the offense is sputtering and can’t seem to get anything going, they can always fall back on their stout defense to keep them in games.
Junior goalkeeper Emerie Loftis contributed another save in this game to push her total to 21 this season, which has been huge for the team’s success.
The Golden Rams look to get back on track against yet another conference member, Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP), this Saturday, Oct. 28 at 4 p.m. in what is the Golden Rams’ senior day.
Colin Bradley is a fourth-year English major with a minor in Journalism. CB953277@wcupa.edu