Ball State beats CMU in OT
Heartbreaker.
That’s the only word to describe the Central Michigan women's field hockey game Saturday against Ball State.
CMU went from a 2-1 lead to losing 3-2 in overtime in less than three minutes of play.
BSU (5-6, 2-3 MAC) got on the board first when senior Amanda von Leer failed to clear the ball out of the defensive circle. Forward Kristen Falk intercepted the clear, poked it past von Leer, and sent the ball past junior goaltender Anastasia Netto.
“I thought we were sloppy today,” said head coach Cristy Freese.
The Cardinals had multiple opportunities to strengthen their lead in the closing minutes of the first half, but could not follow through.
BSU junior Caitlin Maguire just missed a cross through the open front of the cage. On the next offensive play, Netto made a diving save, punching the ball out of bounds.
The Chippewas took over in the second half. In the 42nd minute, sophomore Erin Dye scored her second goal of the season, carrying the ball into the offensive circle, beating the BSU goaltender.
“We need Erin to score goals or create assists,” Freese said. “I thought she did nice with that.”
Eight of CMU’s 15 shots came in the second half, where they held the majority of the possession time.
“There were a lot of balls that we could have come up with cleanly that we didn’t,” Freese said. “We kept them in our offensive end the last 10 minutes and really had plenty of opportunities to win it.”
CMU (3-8, 1-2 MAC) finally connected in the 68th minute. Running down the sideline, Paulina Lee sent a cross through to sophomore Brittany Burga who deflected the ball into the net.
With just over a minute left in the game, CMU seemed to have the game locked up, but BSU junior Devanny Kuhn tied the game up with 15 seconds remaining. Junior Gretchen Lulow picked up an assist on each of the goals in regulation.
“She’s a good scorer,” Freese said. “I thought Anna should have come out and challenger her but she didn’t.”
For the second straight game, and third time this season, CMU needed more than the 70 minutes of regulation to decide a contest. But for the first time this season, the Chippewas didn’t score the game-tying goal.
Kuhn scored her second goal of the game, and MAC-best 11th goal of the season, on a breakaway in the 71st minute.
“I knew Ball State wasn’t going to give up. They came back and I thought we were a bit lazy,” Freese said.
CMU outshot Ball state 15-5, but only produced one goal - a stat that Dye was disappointed with.
“We’re definetly struggling on finishing," she said. "We’ve just got to capitalize on opprounities we receive in the circle because clearly it’s not the quantitiy of the opportunities, but the quality"
