The Massachusetts field hockey team began homecoming weekend by securing a 2-0 victory over Virginia Commonwealth, its first Atlantic-10 opponent of the season on Friday. After starting 0-2, UMass (5-2, 1-0 A-10) now has won five straight.
“We don’t look forward, only to the moment that’s happening right then. So whether it’s that training session or that game, that’s all we’re looking at,” head coach Barb Weinberg said about the win streak.
The first half was a defensive battle with neither team scoring going into halftime. The Minutewomen, a top-10 scoring team in the country, had five shots in the first half with one penalty corner as VCU (2-3, 0-1 A-10) had the upper hand, taking seven shots and three penalty corners.
“We needed to pick up our connections, we weren’t moving the ball quite as much as we needed to and that is the strength of our team,” Weinberg said about the first half. “When we hang onto the ball it takes away from what our real strength is so the message was continue to move, continue to pass the ball and we were able to do that.”
After over 11 minutes of gameplay in the third quarter, Elena Cloconeanu scored her third goal of the season for UMass to open up the game’s scoring. Last week’s A-10 Rookie of the Week Elani Sherwood got the assist with a long baseline pass across the net with Cloconeanu finishing the play with a bottom left corner shot to find the back of the net.
Less than four minutes into the fourth quarter, VCU found themselves defending back-to-back Minutewomen penalty corners. The first was unsuccessful with Neva Eisenga’s shot getting blocked, but was immediately followed by Paula Lorenzini making the game 2-0 as she converted the penalty corner with a bottom left corner shot for her third goal of the season. Hannah De Gast and Izzy Acquaviva got the assists on the goal.
The final 12 seconds of the third quarter consisted of four VCU penalty corners, all of which were successfully defended by UMass. Ava Radel took all four, where Lotje Aalderink’s shot went wide, Ella Fehr’s shot was blocked and the last shot was UMass goalkeeper Myrte Van Herwijnen saving Luisa Fasold’s shot.
The Rams never scored a goal despite outshooting the Minutewomen 16-11. Fasold led the VCU offense, taking four shots with three of them being on goal. Fehr also had four shots, two of them on target. The Rams also had 11 penalty corners, converting on zero, compared to UMass’s four.
“Our DPC unit trained really well yesterday when we were doing our scout and so I think being confident coming into this game after that training session yesterday helped a lot, and [Van Herwijnen] had a fantastic game,” Weinberg said.
Van Herwijnen was a brick wall for the Minutewomen, making seven saves and getting her second shutout of the season. On the other side, Rams goalkeeper Emma Clements made three saves.
“VCU has a very good team this year and we knew that going into it and it’s always a tight contest with them and our team did a really good job,” Weinberg said. “It wasn’t always pretty this game and we didn’t have a ton of shots but when we did, we were able to convert so I’m proud that we’ve improved that since last Sunday and really proud of this team coming out with a win against a very strong VCU team.”
UMass will close out homecoming weekend against Quinnipiac on Sunday, Sept. 22 at home at 1 p.m.
Maxwell Solomon can be reached at [email protected] and followed on X @Maxwell697909.
