by The Cowl Editor on September 21, 2017
Friar Sports
by Jack Belanger ’21
Sports Staff
The Providence College Women’s Field Hockey Team had an eventful week. The team began Big East play against Temple University Friday night, then took the University of California-Davis, a team that traeled all the way from the west coast to play in Rhode Island. The Friars took both games, scoring nine goals over the two games and holding their oponents to two goals each.
Friday night marked the begining of Big East play for the Friars as they took on a Temple team that was 1-4 coming into the game. Allyson Parer ’20 got things started for PC as she scored the first goal of the game off a penalty corner shot that was assisted by Mary O’Reilly ’20 and Maddie Babineau ’21.
Temple responded with two goals of their own and took a 2-1 lead into halftime. In the second half, the Frars took control of the game, scoring three unanswered goals. Megan Hamilton ’18 tied the game for the Friars early in the second half on a tip-in shot from Manon van Weezel ’21.
With less than 20 minutes left to go in the game, Izzy Mendez ’20 gave the Friars the lead for good with a deflection off a pass from Babineau. This marked Mendez’s first career goal for the Friars. Later in the game, Babineau gave PC some insurance with her own goal, scoring three points (one goal, two assists), giving the Friars a 4-2 lead which they would hold on to.
Turning the page to Sunday morning, PC played a 1-6 UC Davis team that was looking to steal a win from the Friars. Those hopes were put to the test early on. Van Weezel scored her first goal of the season off a corner with assists from O’Reilly and Natalie Mitchell ’19. Mikayla Michals ’19 would give the Friars a 2-0 lead going into halftime off a pass from Mendez.
UC Davis showed some fight as they scored the first goal in the second half to cut the lead to 2-1. Mendez and van Weezel responded with each of their own goals to put the game out of reach at 4-1.
Each team would score another goal in the final minutes including a goal from O’Reilly from a corner penalty after the clock had already expired. Goalkeeper Megan Guilbert ’18 had a solid game in goal, coming up with several key saves when UC Davis started to amp up the pressure, keeping the game just out of reach for the visitors.
With the two wins this weekend, the Friars improved their record to 5-3 (1-0 in the Big East), while gaining some momentum as they start to settle into their Big East play.
PC will have a full week of practice as they don’t play until Sept. 22 ,when they go on the road to take on Villanova (1-6, 0-1 in Big East), then take on undefeated University of Connecticut in Storrs on Sept. 29. These are two big games for PC as a matchup against Nova is always big and UCONN will likely be a tight game.