DePauw Field Hockey played its debut home game of the season on Tuesday, September 12 against conference opponent Earlham, winning in a shutout 3-0. It was the Tiger’s second win of the season following their road trip to Tennessee, where they defeated Sewanee and lost to Rhodes.
The teams traded blows early, but late in the first quarter, the Tigers flipped the switch. DePauw’s offensive pressure was felt for the rest of the first half. Our Tigers were able to hold Earlham on their side of the field, and forced infractions to give them corner plays. They finished the half with two goals by Soph. Maggie Volpe and Jr. Jessica Faily. The team came out of halftime with the same aggression, adding another goal in the third quarter from Lily Harris. From there, the Tigers were able to play sound defense to hold Earlham to the shutout.
Head Coach Olivia Shagam believes the key to the offense was the volume of shots taken. “Our returning players that produced a lot of goals for us last fall were able to take a lot of shots for us. We worked a lot on being there to get the rebound off the goalie's pads, so our forwards were there to finish the job and score.” Shagam hopes this can keep up, and that the team can build a high-powered offense.
The Tigers improved their record to 2-3 and moved to 1-0 in conference play. You can catch the next home games on Saturday, September 23 and Sunday, September 24 against Wooster and Oberlin.
Images taken by Coletta (CoCo) LeGrand.