The No. 20 Lady Jays traveled to Lewisburg, Pa. to take on the Bison of Bucknell University. They dominated play for nearly the entire game and outscored the Bison 10-3 in the second half en route to a 16-5 victory. The win, the ninth in a row for the Jays, pushed their overall record to 11-2 and gave them another quality win to push themselves into the No. 17 ranking in the country.
The Jays had an onslaught of goals at the beginning of the game and then later in the second half to dominate play throughout. Freshman Emily Kenul found classmate CeCe Finney less than three minutes into the game to open the scoring. Quickly thereafter, senior Jen Cook scored in transition after a pass from junior Kristen Cannon. Later in the first half, sophomore Haley Schweizer scored from the free position, and junior Dene’ DiMartino, the team’s leading scorer this season, turned the lead into four just under two minutes later.
The pace later slowed as Bison goalie Elizabeth Duswalt began to find a rhythm, but the Jays would respond late in the half. After Gretchen Richter opened the scoring for the Bison, Schweizer and freshman Shannon Fitzgerald fired right back with goals 22 seconds apart. Richter added another one to make the score 6-2 at the half. The first half was not out of the ordinary for the Jays, as five different players scored the six goals.
“Our scoring and point distribution is so widely spread this year,” said Kenul, “and it’s largely due to the fact that everyone places a lot of trust in everyone else.”
The point distribution would be on full display in the second half, but the main goal scorers, Schweizer, Kenul, Fitzgerald and DiMartino, shined.
DiMartino opened the scoring 25 seconds into the second half, and the Jays poured it on from there on out, scoring three more goals in the span of 29 seconds to take a commanding 10-2 lead. “What clicked [was] definitely our offensive chemistry,” said Kenul.
The three goals from Finney, junior Jenna Reifler and Fitzgerald took the energy out of the Bison, and, despite a free position goal from Emily Kookogey, the Jays had grabbed all of the momentum and the game to boot.
The Jays used their stifling defense and efficient offense to hold the Bison scoreless for 13 minutes and add five more goals to their seven-goal lead. Cannon and Kenul scored their first goals of the day and sandwiched goals from Fitzgerald, Schweizer and DiMartino, who all completed hat tricks. It was DiMartino’s 22nd career hat trick.
Senior Jen Cook, who assisted on Cannon’s goal to open the run, notched her 100th career point, becoming just the 18th D-I player to do so.
Bucknell added a couple of late goals to make it a 10 point game, but freshman Maggie Friel took a pass from classmate Eden Epner to close out the game at a score of 16-5.
“We’ve really come together as a team,” Schweizer said. “Our theme this season, ‘success by committee,’ has really held true and helped us pull out these awesome wins.”
The Jays, who rank fourth in the nation in goals against average (GAA), have made defense a focal point this season.
“Our defense is top in the nation,” Schweizer said.
It may not just have been the defense that had led the Jays to the nine-game winning streak, and both Kenul and Schweizer cited the team’s selflessness as the reason for the success.
“Not one person or even two or three has led to our success,” the sophomore midfielder said, insisting that the reason was “every single person pushing each other harder in practice and cheering for one another.”
The Jays face their biggest test of the season next week against the undefeated and No. 1-ranked University of Maryland Terrapins on Wednesday. The Jays had experience against this Terps team when the two squads met in the fall for an exhibition match-up.
Going into the game, Kenul and Schweizer believed that the Jays have a legitimate shot of winning.
“One thing we’ll work on is our draw controls. This is one of the strongest points of Maryland’s game,” Kenul said. “If we can get an edge on them there we’ll have a better chance of winning.”
Schweizer also cited something well outside strategy, saying, “We’ve talked a lot about heart versus hype, and we want to continue playing with all heart and grit.”
The Jays ultimately lost to the Terrapins, 17-9, their first loss in eight weeks.
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