CMU to use games against Miami, Ball State as way to seek higher seed in MAC tournament
The Central Michigan field hockey team looks to crash a pair of “senior day” games this weekend to wrap up the regular season.
CMU (4-12, 2-6 Mid-American Conference) will head to Miami Saturday before finishing its season Sunday against Ball State. Both games are scheduled to start at 1 p.m.
As of Friday, CMU is in a three-way tie for fourth in the MAC with Missouri State and Ball State, who meet at 3 p.m. Friday in Oxford, Ohio.
“We’ve got Ball State, Central and Missouri State fighting to get out of the basement and maybe draw a better seed for the tournament,” said head coach Cristy Freese. “The team that can win this weekend gets them either the fourth or fifth seed.”
Miami, led by senior forward Mary Hull’s two goals, took the first game against the Chippewas this season. Hull is ranked fourth in the conference in total goals with 10.
Guarding the Miami cage is Sarah Mueller, who leads the conference with five shutouts this season.
“(Miami’s) in first place, tied with Kent, so certainly they feel this weekend is going to be big for them,” Freese said. “They control their own destiny, so they’ll be pretty motivated.”
In its Oct. 9 meeting, BSU pulled a late-game comeback to top CMU 3-2. Down a goal fighting the clock, junior midfielder Devanny Kuhn scored her second goal of the game with 15 seconds to play to tie the game, and scored again two minutes into overtime to the give the Cardinals the win.
“Those games show we’re a good team for 65 minutes, but we need to be a great team for 70 minutes,” said junior Brooke Sihota. “Obviously they were able to capitalize on those five minutes that we didn’t play hard.”
Sihota, ranked third on the team in points and an important part of the team’s penalty corner, will be out again this weekend after she was sidelined last weekend with a broken finger.
“It’s tough not being on the field,” Sihota said.
Junior Paulina Lee, who sat out alongside Sihota last weekend with a broken pinky, will be back in the lineup.
“She’s been limited in practice this week, but it looks like every day we get her back a little more,” Freese said. “It’ll be nice to get her back in there for the penalty corner, and we can really use her speed.”
CMU is coming off a weekend where it was outscored 11-1 against Ohio and Kent State. Senior Pam Seufert scored the team’s lone goal, her first of the season.
“Coming off two tough losses, we need to come back this weekend and show the rest of our opponents that we’re not the team to give up,” Sihota said. “Tough weekend or not, we’re going to come back and try and get two wins.”
