After picking up their first two wins of the season last weekend, the Johns Hopkins field hockey team struggled against Salisbury College, the defending NCAA Division III champions yesterday. On a rainy afternoon at Homewood Field, No. 1 Salisbury defeated Hopkins, 6-0, dropping the Blue Jays' record to 2-3.
"There's always a little bit of anxiety coming into a game against a ranked team, especially if that team is ranked first in the country," said head coach Megan Callahan. "We were anticipating a closer game, but we will just have to forget about this one and come back strong in the next one."
Salisbury junior Brittany Elliot scored the first four goals of Wednesday's contest, as the Blue Jay defenders simply could not stop her. However, the second half opened in a more promising fashion, after the Blue Jays altered their defensive strategy.
"We changed our defense in the second half to make our backfield more accountable for marking," said Callahan. Although the defensive modification held off Elliott, Salisbury senior Melissa Webster managed to score a goal in the second half on a penalty corner to make the score 5-0. With fewer than 15 minutes left to play, the Sea Gulls scored once more. Senior Erin Budd blasted a shot past junior goalkeeper Meredith Shifman off a feed from Danielle Twilley.
In spite of the strength of their opponents, the Blue Jays did not try to use the level of competition as an excuse. Instead, they contended that they were not at their best.
"I don't think we played to our potential," said junior defender Carly Cammarata. "We held back a little. It was hard fought, but we didn't have a sense of urgency."
"It was just one of those days where we didn't come together," said senior defender Jen Rolston. "We had a breakdown of communication."
The lack of communication was apparent on offense, as the team struggled with receiving passes and did not manage to take a single shot against the Sea Gulls. In contrast, Salisbury took 19 shots and also dominated in penalty corners 11-2. Shifman had eight saves on the day, but this was not enough to stop the Sea Gulls from improving their undefeated record to 6-0.
Coming into the game, Hopkins was riding a two-game win streak after defeating Washington and Lee Saturday afternoon and Lynchburg on Sunday, both by a scores of 2-0.
"We definitely peaked this weekend," said Cammarata. "I thought that we had worked through all the kinks, but now we are back to needing to practice some of our fundamentals. It goes back and forth, but I believe that there are many peaks in a season."
On Saturday, the Blue Jays won their first game of the year by beating the Generals in Lexington, Virginia. Sophomore defender Leah Dudley scored the game's first goal after 15 minutes off a pass from junior midfielder Meighan Roose. In the second half, junior forward Caite Kappel capped off the victory by scoring off a feed from sophomore forward Jamie Zubrow. Shifman needed just one save to notch her first shutout of the season.
Hopkins came through with another shutout on Sunday, taking care of Lynchburg on the Generals' turf field in Lexington. Lynchburg is a grass team, so they are accustomed to a different style of field hockey, in which games are slower-paced, but more aggressive.
Roose and senior forward and co-captain Anna Rehwinkel provided all the offense Hopkins would need by scoring one goal apiece. Sophomore goalkeeper Dayna Eng made six saves in her first shutout this year.
"We beat a grass team over the weekend and we hoped to carry that momentum over into today's game, but unfortunately we didn't," sophomore midfielder Amy Soergel said after Wednesday's loss.
However, the Blue Jays are still favored to win the Centennial Conference and remain optimistic about their prospects for the remainder of the season.
"It's a long season and we have got a lot of games, including all of our conference games ahead of us," Callahan said.
"The teams we played [Saturday and Sunday] were about the same caliber as the teams we will face in our Conference, so if we play the same way we did last weekend, we should come out on top," said Cammarata.
The Blue Jays' next game will be on Saturday at 3 p.m. at Saint Mary's College. Despite the frustrations of Wednesday's game, they must focus on the matches they have ahead of them.
"I was disappointed by our loss, but this team has so much potential," said Callahan. "We just need to keep on fighting."
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