Aug. 25, 2007
NORFOLK, Va. -- The No. 7 Penn State Lady Lions stopped the Old Dominion women's field hockey streak of five season opening victories by taking a 3-1 win over the No. 6 Lady Monarchs on Saturday afternoon at Foreman Field.
After taking wins over Penn State in each of the last three season openers, the Lady Lions managed to hand a loss to the Lady Monarchs for the first time since the 2003 season.
Penn State struck early and built up a 2-0 lead in the first half. Just over six minutes into the contest, the Lady Lions' Mallory Weisen connected on one of the three Penn State corner attempts. Jen Long and Allison Scola earned the assists. Right before the 15 minute mark, Penn State struck again this time from Shaun Banta on what would prove to the game-winner. Kiersten Wood fired a pass from the top of the cirlce to Banta who was waiting by the right side of the cage for the shot.
Early in the second half, Penn State had three point blank shots on net but two saves by netminder Kelly Driscoll (West Chester, Pa.) and a defensive save by senior Shannon Mobley (Va. Beach, Va.) kept the Lady Monarchs in the game.
After being outshot, 7-2, in the first half, Old Dominion was much more aggressive in the early portions of the second half. Sophomore Anna Kern (Va. Beach, Va.) finally got the Lady Monarchs onto the scoreboard with her first career goal with 24:38 left in the game. Senior Jo Ann van Aswegen (Bloemfontein, South Africa) came tearing into the circle and passed the ball of to Kern at the corner of the cage to find the opening.
Down by only one, 2-1, Old Dominion's Katie Ueberroth (Stevens, Pa.) fired off two shots on the Lady Lion goal, but saw both saved by Penn State netminder Jen Beaumont to preserve the Lady Lion advantage.
With 16:21 left in the game, Britney Long added in an insurance goal for Penn State taking a feed from Banta.
The Lady Monarchs tried to cut their deficit to one in the closing minutes but the Lady Lion defense blocked a penalty corner shot by Katelyn Smither (Suffolk, Va.) to hold on to the two-goal lead.
Penn State outshot Old Dominion, 11-7, while the Lady Monarchs held a 6-4 edge in penalty corner attempts. Driscoll made four saves for the Lady Monarchs, while her counterpart, Beaumont, stopped three ODU shots.
The Old Dominion field hockey team will look to collect its first win of the season tomorrow, Sunday, August 26th, against Miami (Ohio). Game time is 1:00 p.m. and admission is free.
The Miami (Ohio) Redhawks are coached by ODU Hall of Famer Jill Reeve. Reeve, now in her second season with the Redhawks, was the most recent field hockey inductee into the hall having captured a NCAA record 138 career assists. She helped the Lady Monarchs earn three straight NCAA titles from 1990-92.