Sept. 24, 2008
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - The No. 15 Princeton field hockey team netted three goals within a three-minute span to slide past No. 13 Penn State 3-2 Wednesday in University Park, Pa.
The Tigers' only goals were scored by Katie Klinzer, Katie Reinprecht and Kathleen Sharkey in a 2:36 duration, and they held the Nittany Lions to one shot in the second half as it moved to a 5-1 record. Daneen Zug (Manheim, Pa.) tallied both goals for Penn State in the loss.
Penn State held a 12-7 advantage on penalty corners - two of which it capitalized on - but only mustered 13 shots compared to the Tigers' 20.
"We were too slow to execute on penalty corners," head coach Charlene Morett said. "A lot of times we got the ball on the stick, but they were able to knock it away."
The Nittany Lions started the game aggressive on the offensive end. They controlled the ball well early and did not allow it to cross into Princeton territory for the first 12 minutes of the contest. Penn State's sixth penalty corner in that time frame came to fruition when Jen Long (Doylestown, Pa.) faked a Tiger defender in her tracks, passed the ball through her legs to Zug, who wailed it into the net from 13 feet out.
Around the 20-minute mark, Princeton's offense, ranked fourth in the nation coming into today's ball game, began to fire on all cylinders. Kinzer tied the game up at one apiece at 20:02 off a Holly McGarvie assist. Twenty-six seconds later, Reinprecht scored on a fluke crossing pass that trickled past the goalkeeper and into the cage. Reinprecht added her third point just a minute later when she aided a Sharkey goal for a 3-1 lead.
Morett said, "We didn't have the intensity in that three-goal stretch to get the ball out of the circle."
Zug added her second goal of the game late in the first half of another penalty corner. Allison Scola (Hummelstown, Pa.) fed it to the stopper Long, who placed the ball for a Zug shot that cascaded into the corner of the cage. Zug barely missed a chance at a hat trick but a well-hit shot caromed off the goalkeeper's mask and out of the box.
Jen Beaumont (Chalfont, Pa.) kept the Nittany Lions in the game with her goaltender work in the finishing minutes of the first half. Princeton, led by two penalty corners, went on a 45-second surge where it fired four shots on goal. Beaumont made four stellar saves, including a kick save off of a well-hit scoring chance by Kraftin Schreyer. Beaumont finished with 12 saves.
In the second half, Princeton dominated the pace and kept the Nittany Lion offense at bay. The Tigers out-shot Penn State 6-1 in the second frame and controlled possession for the majority of the period. Morett's squad found itself with the ball in Tiger territory in the final five minutes of the game but was unable to bring it deep inside of the circle.
"You had two really good teams out there today," Morett said. "We got ahead of the ball at first, but then we got behind the ball in the second half."
Princeton's win marks the first time in 11 tries it has beaten the Nittany Lions in University Park. The Tigers beat Michigan at the Field Hockey Field in the 2002 playoffs. They had not beaten Penn State since defeating it in both regular and post-season play in 2000.
Penn State will begin Big Ten conference play Sunday when it travels to No. 16 Ohio State at 1 p.m. The game will be broadcast on the Big Ten Network later that day at 4 p.m.