Northeastern finds overtime winner to down field hockey
Flore van Dessel attempted to put her stamp on a model senior day.
Jim Swing
Assistant Sport Editor
Flore van Dessel attempted to put her stamp on a model senior day. Van Dessel took advantage of an awarded penalty stroke with 47 seconds remaining to even VCU with Northeastern, 3-3 and send the game to overtime. The Rams’ final home game would come to a spoiling end five minutes into the overtime period when the Huskies’ Nicky Graham found the back of the cage for a 4-3 win.
“Northeastern played a hard game,” head coach Kelly McQuade said. “I think that it was just a couple of breakdowns, and they have great individual skill, and our defensive unit really was not on today.”
The Rams struggled early in the first half, allowing the Huskies to control the tempo of the game and produce the game’s first goal by Carolyn Malloy off of a cross pass from Crystal Poland to make the score 1-0.
VCU would create the equalizer on a corner just before the half in the 22nd minute on a hard shot from Stephanie DeMasi.
The Rams offense was unable to create many opportunities in the first half, being outshot by Northeastern 6-4. After a gracious halftime stoppage of the play, VCU came out with a new surge of energy developed by lead scorer Kelsey Scherrer on a pass across the box from Arielle Hess to give the Rams their first lead of the game.
“I think we put ourselves at a pretty big disadvantage at the beginning of the first half; it was pretty quiet for us,” McQuade said. “We really didn’t have any sparks or any attack until after we scored that first goal; then we started playing.”
Northeastern’s offense would prevail late in the second half, scoring two consecutive re-directed goals just nine minutes apart to put the Huskies up 3-2.
Senior day festivities would be halted, however, by the deciding goal in overtime on a drive and shoot from Graham to send the Rams to a state of disappointment.
“There was a lot of chaos on our defensive end, and people were coming in for weak tackles,” McQuade said. “That type of breakdown hurt us, and it really showed.”
Despite its downfalls in the season’s final home game, VCU will have the opportunity to compete in the Colonial Athletic Association Tournament in the coming week after finishing in the top four of the conference. McQuade left Friday’s game in hopes that her team can take a turn for the best and bounce back.
“I’m hoping that they will be ready to go on more of a revenge factor which will be great,” McQuade said. “Hopefully with this preparing us and setting the stage for the CAAs, it will help us in the long run, and we will find the positives in it.”
The Rams will await their opponent in the tournament, which will be hosted by the conference’s highest seed Nov. 6th and 7th.
“This was great preparation for us going into CAA play,” McQuade said. “This level of play is just preparing us and setting us up to be better off in CAA play.”
