Field hockey finishes road trip at Ohio State
The CMU field hockey team will cap its longest road trip since 2003 this weekend with a pair of games in Columbus, Ohio.
The team will play its fifth and sixth consecutive road games Saturday against Vermont and Sunday against No. 20 Ohio State. Both games are at 2 p.m.
Vermont is a team struggling to find offense. It has scored four goals in six games, with three coming in a single game.
“I think that their last game, which they scored three goals in, could be a sign that they are starting to gel and turn it around,” said goalkeeper Melinda Curran. “The key for us, regardless of who we play, is that we need to work better as a unit. Our goal, obviously, is to shut them down, but I really think that this is going to be a challenge.”
Sunday bears extra meaning for field hockey coach Cristy Freese, a former Buckeye.
She said she relishes the opportunity to see her new team play her former team.
“I have been at Central Michigan for 23 or 24 years now and I was only at Ohio State for four years,” she said. “Obviously I have much greater allegence to CMU. I don’t keep in touch with their program as an alumni I keep in touch as a fellow coach and a competitor. I will confess that I do root for Ohio State in football but, if Central Michigan played Ohio State, I would root for the Chippewas.”
Similar to the Wildcats
The Buckeyes boast a 3-5 record. Three of those losses were against ranked opponents and were decided by one goal, including two overtime losses.
“I look at Ohio State and they are very similar to Northwestern, but they are more polished,” Freese said. “Northwestern had one kid that scored goals and OSU has two or three kids that can score goals, but they will score those goals the same way that Northwestern did.”
OSU has scored 16 goals and allowed nine in five games this season. The Buckeyes own two of the Big Ten’s top five scorers in forwards Berta Queralt (three goals, six assists) and Natalie Ciminiello (five goals, one assist), who rank third and fourth in the conference.
“I think we would like to change our defensive strategy a little bit to try and shut their big players down,” Freese said. “I think that we have to get the match-ups we like and we need to get Kim Erasmus and Kim Sihouta matched up against them.
“If we do that then, hopefully, we will frustrate them a little bit. If that happens, then I think we will have a chance to get our offense in gear against them.”
