Field hockey looks to even record in St. Louis
The Central Michigan women’s field hockey team will travel to St. Louis this weekend looking to get back to .500 for the first time this season.
CMU, off to a 1-3 start, will play UC-Davis at 2 p.m. Saturday and Saint Louis at 3 p.m. Sunday.
“(They are) definitely teams I think we can compete with, but we need to play better as a team, both days in a row,” said CMU head coach Cristy Freese.
UC-Davis (1-3) is coming off a double overtime victory on the road Wednesday against the MAC’s Missouri State, it’s first win in more than a year. In four games, sophomore Nadia Namdari leads the team’s offense with two goals and an assist.
SLU (0-6), meanwhile, has struggled offensively this year and been limited to one lone goal, which came off the stick of junior Nicole Kent in the team’s 6-1 loss against Ohio.
In 2006, the last time the two teams met, CMU and SLU split their two-game series.
The Chippewas fought to come back in the first game, scoring two-second half goals to pull past the Billkens 2-1, but allowed three unanswered goals and were shut out in the second game.
Consistency is what Freese feels the team needs to improve on coming into the weekend.
“The first weekend we went 0-2, and this last weekend we went 1-1, so what are we looking for? Probably a 2-0 weekend,” she said.
After a late comeback forced extra time Saturday against Providence, CMU freshman Bailey McKeon scored off a cross by junior Paulina Lee to earn the team its first win of the season.
The momentum was unable to pull the team past in-state rival Michigan Sunday, however, as they dropped that game 4-0.
Junior Anastasia Netto started both games, allowing six goals between the two games and making 13 saves.
While she gave up four goals Sunday, Freese has full confidence in Netto, electing to start her this weekend.
“Anna’s got that position right now, she’s been real solid,” Freese said. “She needs to continue (it) and we need to establish some consistency from that position.”
During practice this week, the team looked at video from Sunday’s game against U-M, where Freese pointed out where the team needed to improve.
“As much fun as it was Saturday to win, we paid a little more attention following Sunday’s game to what we’ve got to work on,” Freese said.
Her biggest complaints were that the offense stood around a little too much and did not make enough quality cuts, while the defense needs to work on pressuring in the middle of the arc and clearing rebounds.
“We need to look better on offense and mark better on defense,” she said.
Following the weekend, the team heads back to Mount Pleasant for a three-week home stand against New Hampshire, Iowa, Kent State, Ohio, Ball State and Miami.
