The Massachusetts field hockey team earned a significant 4-0 win over Davidson on Friday afternoon’s senior day. The win gives the Minutewomen (14-4, 7-0 Atlantic 10) the A-10 regular season title for the first time in head coach Barb Weinberg’s tenure.
Before the game, UMass honored its seven seniors and graduate students. The Minutewomen departing the school are Elena Cloconeau, Paula Lorenzini, Dempsey Campbell, Bethan Collier, Izzy Acquaviva, Claire Danahy and Hannah de Gast.
A number of the seniors and graduates spent all four to five years at UMass and have been a large part of the success the Minutewomen have had.
“So much,” Weinberg said on the impacts of the seniors. “This season, so much maturity, so much leadership, they’ve been so processed oriented all season long and haven’t thought to the next thing until they’ve taken care of what’s happening right in front of them. They’re on a mission.”
To celebrate the day, two seniors and graduate students scored to help the Minutewomen in their win. Graduate student Danahy opened the scoring in the second quarter of the game, with 29 seconds left in the quarter. Cloconeau added a shot on Davidson (7-8, 3-4 A-10) goalkeeper MaryKate Berg, but it was blocked away. Danahy grabbed the rebound off a Wildcat defender and slapped it past to snatch a 1-0 lead.
The goal gave UMass the momentum it needed heading into its three goal second half. Before the goal, the Minutewomen struggled to get anything past the goalkeeper for the first 29 minutes, even with 11 penalty corners in the first two quarters.
“[Davidson’s] penalty corner defense was running really well, and we were having trouble getting anything off,” Weinberg said. “We ran I think 15 different corner options today so to finally crack that before halftime I think was huge for us.”
To begin the second half, Lorenzini scored on a penalty corner a minute and 49 seconds into the third quarter. Danahy settled the ball to allow Cloconeau to pass to Lorenzini, who shot the ball through traffic to put UMass up 2-0.
Campbell was the last senior to score, on UMass’ 13th penalty corner of the afternoon. De Gast passed to Acquaviva, who kept her stick down to settle the ball. As Acquaviva backed away from the ball, Campbell sent a hard shot easily past Berg.
Throughout the game, the Minutewomen defense covered up the Wildcats’ offense. Davidson struggled to get past the center line at times. The Wildcats attempted zero shots on goalkeepers Myrte van Herwijnen and Macarena Gonzalez due to UMass’ stout defense.
“Our press worked really well,” Weinberg said. “Anytime that [Davidson] tried to counter and go forward, we were able to break the momentum. I thought they did a really good job of executing the press today.”
Elani Sherwood was the final goal scorer of the day, netting her eighth goal of the season. Danahy grabbed the ball on a rebound from the Davidson goalkeeper and stickhandled to pull Berg out of net. With an open goal, Danahy passed to Sherwood, who quickly tapped the ball home.
The win marks the first undefeated A-10 season for UMass since 2013 and secures the Minutewomen the No. 1 seed in the A-10 tournament. The tournament kicks off on Thursday, Nov. 7 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. UMass is set to take on the No. 4 seed at 11 a.m.
“We’ve got to sharpen up on some things, be a little bit more clinical with our basic skills, work on going in and out of different systems so we give teams different looks throughout the tournament,” Weinberg said. “It’s really just a sharpening up week, we’ve done all the preparation all season long.”
Kayla Gregoire can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @Kaygregoire.
