While Lady Lion Coach Char Morett celebrated her 100th and 101st victory at Penn State, the field hockey team racked up two victories essential to its placing in the NCAA Tournament.
Morett is in her sixth year as a coach for the Lady Lions, and holds a record of 101-25-14. After the Lady Lions’ 3-1 victory over Ohio State, Morett was presented with a mass of blue and white balloons, a bottle of champagne, flowers, and a cake to celebrate. At first, Morett was surprised by the barrage of gifts, and did not know why she was getting them.
“I had no idea,” she said. “I thought I celebrated this a couple of years ago, but that was my 100th career win, and I know my birthday isn’t for another month. It’s great. It really is.”
Due to an uncooperative Mother Nature, all of the field hockey games were played inside Holuba Hall. The change of atmosphere seemed to do the Lady Lions a lot of good as they roared over both Ohio State and Northwestern.
“I think the change of scenery was fresh air for us,” co-captain Amy Stairs said. “I just think everybody knows the NCAAs are just around the corner, and with Char and all, it just made for some really great field hockey.”
Amidst all of the emotion, the Lady Lions’ attack came to life. Until this weekend, the defense has been the key to the Penn State game. With the awakening of the attack, the Lady Lions presented a full-team effort, and played the best they have this season.
“Everybody played great,” senior Daniele Annibale said. “The defense was keeping the ball away from our end, there were great passes through the midfield, and they put it right there for the attack. It was the best we’ve played.”
In their 1-0 victory over Northwestern, the Lady Lions fired off 44 shots on goal and permitted only four Northwestern shots on goal. Wildcat goalkeeper Shannon Small recorded 30 saves, and was the only thing preventing the Lady Lions from a high scoring game.
“(Small) was the difference between, what was a close game, and a complete blowout,” Morett said. “We tried everything, and she held off everything.”
Despite the lack of scoring, the Lady Lions dominated the field, and showcased everything they have worked on in the past weeks.
“We were keeping the field spread, and we’re finaly passing hard and accurate,” Senior Kelly Heiser said. “We were all so psyched! Especially against Ohio.”
The Lady Lions pounced out to an early lead, and left the Lady Buckeyes unheard of from that point on.
“I just think that we were playing on such an emotional high,” Miester said. “We were just so intense that we couldn’t have been stopped. We wanted to jump on them early, and we did.”
Six minutes into the game Chris McGinley hooked up with the Co-Captian Connection of Stairs and Jen Stewart to score on a penalty corner.
The Lady Lions attack continued to circle the Lady Buckeye goal just waiting for the prey to expose itself.
Junior Kirt Benedict found a tender spot, and slapped a shot towards the open corner of the goal, and McGinley gave it the bump to make the score 2-0.
Shortly after, when Benedict was crashing the goal, Ohio goalkeeper Sue Wilson was kicking away an Annibale slapshot, and hit Benedict in the face. Benedict left the game, and returned to the sidelines shortly after with stitches, two shiners, and a broken nose. She was unable to return for the remainder of the weekend.
Annibale went on to score the final Lady Lion goal about half way through the first half. Morett used many subs in the second half, and received a first rate performance from them.
“We have the depth we need to go into the NCAAs,” Morett said. “It is a good thing to know that we have people like Kelly Heiser and Meredith (Mandrachia) that can just jump right in, and do that well.”