The Slippery Rock field hockey team grabbed a win Saturday, on a day where SRU held a ceremony to honor the memory of the late Meghan “Wheels” McKinney. McKinney was a former Rock standout who played at SRU from 2010-13. The team dedicated a bench outside the field hockey locker room in McKinney’s honor following the win.
Head Coach Julie Swiney was very proud of the way the team performed on such a day.
“Scoring five goals and getting a win was a great way to honor Wheels in addition to the bench dedication,” Swiney said.
SRU played their best offensive game of the season en route to the 5-2 win.
The Rock got goals from sophomore Hannah Downing, senior Renee Rosenblum and senior Megan McKay. McKay also recorded an assist along with freshman Savanna Robinson, who assisted on two goals.
McKay recorded her fourth goal of the season and the 26th of her career. With the goal, she passed Marlene Hall (1985-88) for the most goals in SRU history. McKay is also the all-time points leader and now just needs one assist to move into a tie for first place in SRU history in career assists.
Junior goalkeeper Nicole Bream made 12 saves on the 14 Bellarmine shots on goal in 70 minutes.
After the Knights’ scored first, The Rock fired back with a goal from Downing after she stole the ball from a BU defender in the Knights’ zone and shot it into the cage for the score. Three minutes later, McKay received a pass to the middle of the Bellarmine zone from Robinson and put her goal past keeper Brittanny Macnab to give SRU a 2-1 lead.
Bellarmine’s Amanda Jaworski closed out the period for BU with a game-tying goal to even the game at 2-2.
Out of the halftime break, Rosenblum scored off a pass from Robinson at 54:45 and then scored again at 59:10 to put The Rock again, 4-2. Downing then finished out scoring with two minutes left in regulation on a pass to the middle from McKay en route to the 5-2 win.
SRU earned the victory despite Bellarmine holding advantages in shots on goal (14-11) and penalty corners (15-4).
SRU returns to action 4 p.m. Sept. 20 at no. 8 Bloomsburg University.
