Paulina Lee to miss time after having surgery on fractured pinky
The Central Michigan women’s field hockey team will be without one of its offensive weapons this weekend.
Junior midfielder Paulina Lee will miss the team’s pair of games against Missouri State after having surgery to repair a fractured right pinky suffered earlier this season.
“At first we thought she was going to be out for the rest of the season, but we got some good news,” said head coach Cristy Freese. “Really good news would be she misses one weekend, but more realistically, if we get her back for the last week of the conference, we’d be pretty happy.”
Lee’s three assists are tied with junior Brooke Sihota for first on the team. She has started all 12 games this season, recording 799 minutes on the field.
“She hurt it before we went to St. Louis.” Freese said. “It was protected, but it just wasn’t healing very well. She’s a tough kid.”
New approach
Following back-to-back losses last weekend, the coaching staff has taken a new approach in preparing for the series against Missouri State.
“I really decided this week to focus on us. Last week we spent a lot of time watching tapes from Miami and Ball State,” Freese said. “This week I decided to really just watch us.”
The team struggled getting the ball out of its defensive end against Miami and individual defense. “We’ve done a lot of work from the sideline, trying to work our way in,” Freese said. “We’re also working on some corner shots and one-on-one defense.”
The team has moved its practices to the Indoor Athletic Complex turf field this week in order to prepare for the weekend against Missouri State. The Bears play at the Plaster Sports Complex in Missouri.
Freese said playing on the turf is a different game. The balls roll slower, and it’s a more condensed game than on the normal surface.
“What I like about our team is win or lose we come back and try to stay confident and work to get better,” Freese said. “We made some mistakes last weekend, but we’ll come out and work hard against Missouri State.”
