One play told the story of Sunday’s matchup at Garber Field.

The Massachusetts field hockey team held a scoreless tie against Albany with 29 minutes left in the game. Senior captain Katie Kelly, who has been responsible for 60 percent of the team’s scoring this season, stole the ball at the top of the circle and charged towards the cage on a breakaway.

Sophomore Kristi Troch, the Great Danes’ goalkeeper who had just entered the game at the start of the second half, stepped forward to meet Kelly about 15 feet from the goal. Only Albany midfielder Taylor Luke trailed the play, but she was more than 10 feet behind.

Kelly managed to get around Troch and got an off-balance shot off. It was the go-ahead shot, and it was heading straight for the left side of the goal.

Luke raced the ball to the net and with a full-out dive, crashed into the post, deflecting the ball out of bounds, and squandering the Minutewomen’s best chance of the game to put up a score.

“That was a great example of a player that has the will to win,” UMass coach Justine Sowry said.

Immediately following the play, Sowry called her only timeout, pulling her team aside to praise Luke’s effort, and telling her team that the way she played was how the Minutewomen needed to play if they wanted to win.

“She pulled the ball off the line and we talked about it,” Sowry said. “We’re not diving for balls or interceptions. Balls just go by us and there’s not that desperation.”

Albany finally broke through in the 53rd minute, when junior forward Christina Patrick found the back of the net to give the Great Danes the lead.

In a game where UMass continually applied most of the pressure on Albany’s defense, getting opportunity after opportunity to put the first goal up on the scoreboard, this one play exemplified the grit that put Albany over the top.

“Basically, Albany just outworked us today,” Kelly said. “They were relentless. I don’t know if the physicality that we played to was our best, though. Albany played with great energy, and we needed to play like that.”

That energy also translated into numerous penalties. Six penalty cards were handed out yesterday afternoon, five charged to Albany players. Three of the cards were yellow, meaning that a player had to sit out for at least five minutes. Even the Great Danes bench received cards.

“You never go into a game thinking that so many cards are going to be thrown, but that’s the way the game played,” Sowry said. “I thought for the majority of the game we kept our composure, but there definitely were moments where we should have had a little bit more poise and then taken advantage of the opportunity of playing a couple of people up.”

UMass had its best opportunity to answer Albany’s goal with under 10 minutes to play. Within a span of three minutes, two Great Danes players received yellow cards, and the Minutewomen were playing with two extra bodies.

With three minutes remaining, UMass senior midfielder Makaela Potts took a shot that was in-line to hit the left corner of the net, but instead deflected off teammate Jaime Bourazeris. It was the last clean shot the Minutewomen would get off.

“It’s extremely frustrating,” Sowry said. “Give Albany a ton of credit, playing with two players down for a good portion of the game and they came out on top. I think at times we were a little bit too casual in building the ball out, thinking that we have all the time in the world.

“Later in the second half we became a little more desperate, but that’s what we need every minute of the game and every minute of practice,” she added. “So you have to practice how you play. We have to up the intensity and have the will to win everyday.”

Pete Vasquez can be reached at [email protected].