UMass Lowell field hockey snaps three UMaine winning streaks
ORONO, Maine – Three University of Maine field hockey winning streaks came to an end on a Friday afternoon at the UMaine field hockey complex.
The University of Massachusetts Lowell received first-half goals from graduate student midfielder Berbel Rozema and junior forward Ava Clarke and went on to post an America East victory over the Black Bears, which snapped UMaine’s string of 17 consecutive America East regular season home game wins, 12 straight America East regular season victories home or away and 14 consecutive wins over the River Hawks.
Sophomore forward Madison Leeper extended the lead early in the third period and, 43 seconds after a UMaine goal was waved off following a video review, freshman forward Karli Penrod made it 4-0 with 4:54 remaining in the period.
It was the fourth goal of the season for all four River Hawks.
UMass Lowell is now 6-2 overall and 1-0 in league play while UMaine fell to 4-5 and 2-1.
Leeper and Penrod each had an assist to go with their goals and goalies Christina Calandra and Marie Oliemans combined for eight saves on 10 UMaine shot attempts.
Mallory Drayer had three saves and allowed two goals for UMaine, and Jayde Temby didn’t make a save and allowed two goals. UMass Lowell generated 11 shots.
“Today, UMass Lowell has arrived,” said River Hawks coach Shannon LeBlanc. “We have a full team. Depth in every single position including goalkeeping.”
She added that Maine is “obviously a strong team. Very skillful. Great discipline and they know how to win. They had a couple of key players that we needed to limit their touches on and our team did a great job making it really hard for them to attack.”
It didn’t take long for the River Hawks to jump out to a lead they would never relinquish.
Berbel scored just 1:52 into the game off a penalty corner.
Penrod inserted it to Mirthe Gans and she set it up for Berbel, whose low blast from the top of the circle deflected into the cage off Drayer’s stick.
Clarke expanded the lead with just 29 seconds left in the half while standing in the middle of the circle. Leeper slid her a short pass and she snapped it into the far corner.
“I was just trying to get it in the back of the net and (Leeper) gave me a great ball to do so,” said Clarke.
UMaine was without starting back and captain Hannah Abbott and fellow starting back Kristjana Walker played just quarter due to a lower body injury sustained in the last game.
“UMass Lowell capitalized on their chances. We had opportunities and we didn’t (capitalize). We got exposed in the back at the beginning and tried to change our strategy to be a little more aggressive in the second half but it doesn’t help when we don’t have enough experience in the backfield,” said UMaine head coach Josette Babineau. “Its too bad. I would have wished to have played them with a full lineup.”
Rozema said the win feels “amazing.
“This was on my bucket list,” said Rozema. “We did the things we had to do. We executed them well.”
Leeper scored with a nice shot into the far corner before Penrod scored from in front.