The Lady Cavs field hockey team used five first period goals to cruise to an 8-0 victory over Albright College on Tuesday, Sept. 13. The win was the Cavaliers’ first home victory of the season and improved their season record to 2-3.
Cabrini outshot the Albright Lions 14-2 in the contest and saw goal contributions from five different players. Senior forward Stephanie Campanaro finished the game with three goals and now leads the team with five goals on the season.
“We were trying a new formation today and it really worked well for all of us,” Campanaro said.
Senior midfielder Maura Gordon started the scoring off for the Cavaliers with a goal 8:04 into the game finished with two goals, giving her four for the season
Midfielder Taylor McGarvey, forward Lauren Alessi and midfielder Stephanie Toomey each scored once in the game to complement Campanaro’s and Gordon’s efforts.
“We went with a little bit of a different formation, but it’s still the same team,” head coach Jackie Neary said. “I know that they’re all happy with the game and have a little bit of confidence now.”
Prior to the team’s game versus Albright, the Cavs lost to Gettysburg College by a score of 4-1 on Saturday, Sept. 10. Neary and the team viewed the loss to Gettysburg as motivation to come out strong against Albright.
“As a coach, when you schedule these higher teams there’s a chance that you might take a beating, but there’s also a chance that you may learn a lot and carry that into other games,” Neary said. This fall is Neary’s 16th season coaching the field hockey team.
“We came off of a bunch of really hard games, so I think those games helped us to push our level of play up,” Campanaro said. “I don’t think they were really expecting us to play at the level that we did today.”
The last time the team scored more than seven goals came back in Oct. of 2009 when the team shut out the College of Notre Dame 7-0. Prior to Tuesday, the Cavs hadn’t scored more than three goals in any of their games this season.
Freshman Genevieve Paulin started the game for Cabrini and made one save to pick up her first career win and shutout. Albright’s Kaitlyn Pietrusewicz had her team’s lone shot on goal in the loss.
After a 1-3 start to the season, the Cavs are hoping that this game can spark some energy for the team as they prepare to face Neumann University on Saturday, Sept. 17 in Aston, Pa. Neumann currently holds a 1-3 record for the season.
“We just have to stay on top of our opponents and our coaches just need to keep coaching,” Neary said.
