Field Hockey kicks off longest home stand of season
Field hockey’s longest home stand of the season begins with a matchup against Longwood University (4-7) this Sunday. A victory in it’s most recent Mid-American Conference game, propels the Central Michigan University field hockey team (2-8) into the weekend.
MAC play started last week for the Chippewas when they defeated Ball State 2-0. Junior Kaysie Gregory provided the offense, while senior goalkeeper Sadie Reynolds held BSU scoreless.
Coach Cristy Freese made an adjustment in the defensive schemes in the BSU game, which she said she will keep in place against Longwood.
“What we’re trying to do is get the ball up the field quicker,” she said. Freese said she expects Longwood to push the pace in an attempt to wear down the defense of a relatively inexperienced Chippewas squad. “Longwood will move it around their backfield,” Freese said. “We’ve seen that before in other opponents. We need to tweak what we’ve been doing.”Longwood’s Jennifer Burris leads her team with 15 points. CMU will counter with scorers such as senior Cayleigh Immelman, freshman Haley Bova and Gregory. Longwood has lost each of the six road games it has played in 2014.
The CMU coaching staff moved Gregory up to the forward line late against UC Davis earlier in the season.
Since that switch, CMU has scored five goals in two games, three of those coming from Gregory. Freese said the strong play that Gregory has displayed since the position move has benefited the entire team.
“We’ve wanted to move (Gregory) up before, and it’s worked well so far.”
Game time is set for 12 p.m at the field hockey complex.
