Field Hockey: Solid second halves help Bulldogs maintain successful season

After several games marked by strong starts and shaky finishes, the Yale women's field hockey team reversed the pattern in its two games last weekend. Excelling in the second half, the Bulldogs engineered comebacks of varying success against Boston College and Bucknell.

The Elis traveled to Chestnut Hill, Mass. on Sat., Oct. 13, aware of the talents of the Big East's Golden Eagles. Boston provided the Bulldogs with an immediate wake-up call when forward Amelie Wulff, '03 scored at 24:05 in the first half. Despite falling two goals behind early in the game, the Bulldogs rebounded with two second-half goals within five minutes by Johanna Halfon, CC '04. The second goal, off an assist from Fran Gardner, DC '04, pushed the game into overtime. Despite their late surge, the Bulldogs came up short, as Boston scored the winning goal in overtime to give the Eagles a 3-2 victory.

Yale returned to its home turf the next day to face an eager Bucknell team. The Bulldogs again fell behind early, giving up a goal to Bucknell's Lisa Bingaman '04 with 29:28 left in the half. But the Elis rebounded with strong offense, helping goalie Krissy Nesburg, CC '04, shut out the Bucknell scoring threat. Yale kept the ball on the Bucknell side of the field and scored four consecutive goals to secure a 4-1 win. Captain Caroline Thompson, CC '02, initiated the scoring with a game-tying goal late in the first half, and the second half simply belonged to Yale. Goals by Suzanne Anthony, SM '03, Sarah Driscoll, TC '05, and Stephanie Dolmat-Connell, BK '04, allowed Yale to end the weekend with a 6-6 record despite being 0-3 in Ivy League play.

"At halftime, Coach [Ainslee] Lamb pushed us to work harder to take possession of the ball and vary our offense through transfer balls," Thompson said. "We dominated in the second half and never should have fallen behind in the first place." According to Thompson, Boston was a more challenging opponent than Bucknell, so Yale was unable to mount a similarly triumphant comeback.

"We need to be playing 70 minutes of hockey at a consistently high level," Thompson said about Yale's unpredicatability. "If we do this and take the rest of the season one game at a time, we can finish with a winning Ivy League record."

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