A career marred with injuries and surgeries has not stopped senior Kelly Jordan from moving into fourth place on the CMU field hockey team’s all-time goals list.

Jordan accomplished the feat by scoring two goals against Ball State last Thursday. She finished her career with 39 career goals, including a team-leading 13 goals this season.

The previous owner of fourth place is 2009 graduate Samantha Sandham, who had 38 career goals.

Sandham was a former teammate of Jordan’s and was recruited along with Jordan in hopes that they would form a lethal offensive duo for the Chippewas.

“I love Kelly and Sam as players, and the plan was that we would have a nice one-two punch with Sam and Kelly,” said head coach Cristy Freese. “Unfortunately, with the injuries, that didn’t happen, but Kelly certainly has had a great career here.”

While Jordan is a pure goal scorer, Freese said she was impressed by how open she was to being coached.

“The one thing that she has been good at this year is just how coachable she is,” she said. “Sometimes, because she is an older player, it is easier for her to put things we talk about into the games.”

Jordan said in prior conversations with Sandham, she made it known that one of her main goals was to pass Sandham’s goal mark.

“When Kelly is on her game, she is unstoppable,” Sandham said. “During spring league, she told me it was her goal to break all of my records in her final season; I told her to go for it and, indeed, she did.”

While she respects her former teammate, Jordan said she feels a little competition makes this achievement more fun as long as the important things are still accomplished.

“It is a competition, but it is a good competition because it really doesn’t matter who wins,” she said. “Obviously, we were trying to further the success of the team.”

Jordan said she thinks she and Sandham are similar in a few ways.

“She is a good player and she has a good scoring ability, and I think I do, too,” Jordan said. “We both took corner shots and I think that is another good reason for us to get more opportunity to score.”

E-mail the author: Jacob Lougheed