The DePauw Tigers' field hockey team advanced 10-1 overall and 6-1 in the North Coast Athletic Conference Saturday evening with a five-goal win over Wittenberg University, 6-2.
The Wittenberg Tigers brought speed to the field, as they challenged DePauw’s play and pushed the women in moving the ball up the field. But DePauw's Tigers adjusted well and after an hour and a half of play put 20 shots on goal, with six hitting the back of the cage.
“Stepping to the ball and making strong and accurate passes helped us get another victory,” sophomore midfielder Sofia Carretero said. “Knowing where the next pass was and moving to be ready for it worked well.”
Kate Jovanovic, a senior, fired a shot after the Tigers battled it out in the first 15 minutes to move the ball into their offensive end and add one to the scoreboard.
The Tigers spent the rest of the first half making Wittenberg’s defense weary and knocked two more goals in before halftime. Senior Paige Henry scored the second two goals of the half putting, DePauw up 3-0.
“Our offense did a really good job of taking the ball up the field and scoring early,” junior Natalie Abbott said. “Wittenberg was our last conference game in the first half of the season, so it feels really good to go into the remaining half off of a good team win.”
Starting off the second half, senior Maggie Campbell knocked in two more goals lifting the score to 5-0.
Helping get the ball into their offensive half, DePauw's Tigers excelled in “breaking out on offensive and creating movement in the offensive circle,” Campbell said.
The Tigers of Wittenberg weren’t going home with a shutout, however. In the 44th minute of the game, Megan Loofbourrow scored for Wittenberg.
To finish out the game, Jovanovic found the back of the cage one more time to make it 6-1. Wittenberg added one more tally late in the game to round out the scoring at 6-2.
Going into their game against Wittenberg, DePauw focused on “high intensity and speed and stepping to every 50/50 ball,” Carretero said. “We had high energy into the game and used this, pressuring every single ball, stepping to the ball and quick transitions up the field.”
Transitioning towards the end of the regular season play, the Tigers will continue to practice the basics, pushing themselves to be creative to continue their winning streak.
“We will focus on our stick-to-stick passing, staying strong on the ball and moving the ball quickly up the field,” Carretero said. “We’ll keep high intensity throughout this week of practice so we can be ready for our games this weekend.”
Facing Kenyon College on Saturday, the only team to defeat the Tigers thus far, and Denison University, Campbell says they will be two big games.
“We are starting the second half of conference play,” Campbell said. “And obviously Kenyon is a huge game because we lost to them the first time. This week we want to continue to build on quick and creative offense, but we will be focusing on transition play. So that when we break from defense to offense it's a quick and fluid transition.”