In their first conference game of the season, Slippery Rock University’s field hockey team lost to the Indiana University of Pennsylvania Crimson Hawks at Miller Stadium in Indiana, PA by a score of one to zero.
In a game featuring two bitter rivals, its lone goal came off the stick of freshman midfielder Renee Lauer of IUP with less than 20 minutes remaining in the first half. Freshman defender/forward Hannah Miller assisted on what was Lauer’s first goal of the year.
Although SRU recorded five shots on goal during the first half, none of them led to goals. All of those shots were saves by senior goalkeeper Olivia Accardi for the Crimson Hawks who achieved her second career shutout during her 22nd career start.
The Green and White’s offensive display was halted in the second half as they recorded no shots on goal. However, The Rock made things interesting by having five penalty corners in the game’s second half including two happening right before the game’s conclusion. Freshman midfielder/defender Emily Polakovsky received credit for both of them. The first resulted in a missed shot by sophomore forward Hannah Downing. The second, the game’s final play, resulted in no shots as the ball zipped by Slippery Rock’s offensive players.
Sophomore forward Kayla Ulrich had three penalty corners in the first half. Two of them led to shots on goal. Ulrich made no shots in the game making it the third game only for the season where that happened. In all three games, with the other two being against West Chester and Washington and Jefferson, The Green and White have lost.
A positive statistic for the contest was that SRU senior defender Liz Wolfe recorded two shots in the game making it consecutive games she has recorded multiple shots. Much a surprise, Liz Wolfe, whose specialty is defense as illustrated by her vast number of career defensive saves, has four games with multiple shots this year.
Senior goaltender Maddie Murphy for The Rock, despite being credited with a loss, made five saves during the game against an IUP team who got off ten shots. Even with the loss, Murphy is tied for ninth all-time in program history in career saves with 94. Murphy, who has appeared in 27 games in her career at SRU, is tied for the best all-time record in program history with a 1.85 goals against average per game. In a more negative note, Murphy’s record falls to five wins and four losses this season.
The loss makes The Rock’s record five wins and four losses with a zero win one loss record in conference play. The Crimson Hawks’ record improves to two wins and six losses with a one win zero loss record in conference play.
Slippery Rock University’s next game will be October 6th at home against the #1 ranked West Chester University Rams. West Chester carries a six-win one loss record into the contest. They have not lost a game since September 1st. SRU played them on the road on September 22nd and lost by a score of four to zero. Slippery Rock will be looking for their first win in conference play tomorrow which will be at 1:00 PM at Mihalik-Thompson Field.
