Wilkes-Barre, PA (October 19, 2006) – The DeSales University field hockey team fell just short in its upset bid of 17th ranked King’s College on Thursday afternoon falling to the Lady Monarchs, 3-2, in a Freedom Conference battle.
The loss drops the Bulldogs to 9-7 overall and 2-4 in the Freedom Conference, while King’s improves to 14-2 overall 5-1 in the conference standings. DSU is still very much alive in the quest for the #4 seed in the Freedom Conference playoffs. Very simply the Bulldogs need two things to happen and they will be the fourth seed. DeSales needs to defeat Wilkes University on Tuesday, October 24th and then needs Delaware Valley College to lose one of its final two games (@ FDU-Florham on 10/20, hosts Drew on 10/24). If DVC loses at least one game and the Bulldogs defeat Wilkes, DSU wins all the tiebreakers between the three teams by virtue of its head-to-head wins over both teams.
Today’s game with King’s was a tale of two halves. The Lady Monarchs dominated the opening half opening up 2-0 lead and out-shooting DeSales, 14-2. Megan Farrell tallied the first goal and Christina Glenn scored the second to give KC a 2-0 halftime lead.
The second half belonged to the Bulldogs as they returned the favor by out-shooting KC, 15-5. DSU got within one goal just 8:02 into the second frame when sophomore Amanda Deal (Macungie, PA/Whitehall) continued her extraordinary play with her team leading 12th goal of the season.
King’s regained the two goal advantage with what proved to be the game-winner with 18:45 left to play on Glenn’s second tally of the game. The Bulldogs answered right back just 37 seconds later as Deal scored her second goal of the game off a feed from freshman Meghan Iudicello (Nazareth, PA/Pen Argyl). The Bulldogs had several other chances to score later in the game but were just unable to push the tying goal across the line and King’s held on for the one-goal win.
Each team missed a penalty stroke, King’s in the first half and DSU in the second. The Lady Monarchs finished with a 19-17 edge in shots and had a 19-9 advantage on penalty corners. Freshman Molly Pope (Elkridge, MD/Long Reach) had 14 saves for the Bulldogs, while Kari Leach stopped 13 shots for King’s.
DSU will return to action on Saturday, October 21st when they host another nationally ranked team, #19 Alvernia College, in a non-conference game beginning at 1:30 pm.
