AMHERST, Mass. — Clocked by the Minutewomen!
Father Time and Mother Nature teamed up with the No. 3 ranked University of Massachusetts to shut down Penn State’s No. 5 ranked field hockey team in a 1-0 overtime bout.
UMass junior Tara Jelley scored the gamewinning goal amidst a crowd at the Lady Lion net to win the game, thus ending Penn State’s season.
“Somebody’s got to win, and somebody has to lose,” senior co-captian Jen Stewart said. “And it was us.
The game was a war of the midfields, and neither team made much happen in the first half.
“Both teams were playing a great game,” Coach Char Morett said. “It was going both ways the first half.”
Coming into the game, Morett knew her team would have to use its speed and agility to beat the statuesque Minutewomen. The UMass grass was wet, and the ground was soft, which did not allow for an agile match.
As the game progressed, both teams had to contend with the increasing number of ruts in the field. At the conclusion of the first half both teams had only registered 16 shots on goal combined.
“Both teams had to deal with the conditions,” Stewart said. “Just because UMass is supposed to be used to playing on grass, shouldn’t mean much. We played two of our best games on grass.”
Neither team could develop the momentum necessary to create a scoring opportunity in the first half.
Penn State had two quick penalty corners toward the beginning of the first half, but could not convert. UMass followed up with two of their own, but didn’t get the shots off.
Once again the Lady Lions’ defense was essential to keeping it a close match. Unfortunately, the Minutewomen came out with a much tougher attack, and seemed to stun Penn State. The Lady Lion defense held tough, but the attack was held silent.
Chris McGinley, who is the Lady Lion’s leading scorer was held to only one shot on goal in the entire match — Penn State only had eight shots for the entire match. UMass, on the other hand, cranked out 22 second half shots on goal, and dominated much of the ball control.
“We were nervous in the first half,” UMass Coach Pam Hixon said. “But once we found a way to get the ball out of our end of the field, and we felt our confidence pick up, things started to go our way.”
At one point in the second half, the Minutewomen had seven quick penalty corners. Freshman goalkeeper Shelly Meister stopped all seven and seemed to be feeding off the increasing intensity, and managed to hold out the Minutewomen for the remainder of the second half.
“I wasn’t thinking anything when those shots were coming,” Meister said. “I was just getting more fired up with each one of them.”
Meister had 15 saves on the day, and made the difference in what could have been a blowout.
In overtime, the Minutewomen had been hovering around the Lady Lion goal, and a crowd had developed inside the circle. Jelley ended up on the ground in the midst of all of the elbow brushing, and came up with the winning goal.
“Everyone was in the circle at the time, and there was a little raucous going on in there,” Jelley said. “Then somehow I ended up on the ground, and the next thing I knew the ball came between my legs, and I swooped it in. I could have probably pushed it in faster with my hands.”