Oct. 21, 2016
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| Bauer Field Hockey Complex | Piscataway, N.J. | 217 | |
| POST GAME LINKS |
| Box Score (HTML) | Box Score (PDF) |
| FINAL STATISTICS |
PISCATAWAY, N.J. -No. 6 Penn State (13-2, 5-2 B1G) downed Rutgers (8-7, 2-5 B1G) 4-1 Friday afternoon at Bauer Field Hockey Complex.
"I thought (Rutgers) were really good in the first half," said head coach Charlene Morett-Curtiss.
"I felt we made some adjustments in the second half to get our possession game going and open up some opportunities in the circle. This was a big win for us today, anytime you play a Big Ten team on the road it's always going to be really competitive."
"The talk at halftime was really about making adjustments off the ball, because we were running out of our receiving lanes, so Rutgers was stepping up and intercepting so I felt if we could adjust our back support and keep our possession passing game going that made a big big difference, and really attacking the circle because we really didn't get a lot of opportunities in the first half."
The Scarlet Knights wasted no time getting on the board, scoring the opening goal of the game just five minutes in as Rutgers' Rachel Yaney took a shot from the middle of the circle through the Nittany Lion defense to give the Scarlet Knights the lead 1-0.
The teams traded possession before Skyler Fretz recorded her third defensive save in the 17th-minute off a fast break for the Scarlet Knights.
Neither team would score again in the first half as the Scarlet Knights took a 1-0 lead into halftime.
Rutgers held a halftime lead of 5-3 in shots and 3-2 in penalty corners while the Nittany Lions lead in saves 3-2.
The Nittany Lions would pepper Rutgers' Amanda Lamb with five shots before finally cracking through for their first goal of the game to knot it up at one apiece as Moira Putsch (Media, Pa.) scored off the deflection from Gini Bramley (Elizabethtown, Pa.) from right in front of the goal five feet out.
The goal by Putsch is her 14th on the season extending her team lead.
The Penn State offense would get rolling early and often in the second half as the Nittany Lion's scored on back-to-back penalty corner attempts in the 48th and 50th minute.
Aurelia Meijer (Hattem, Netherland) found the back of the cage on both attempts with Putsch getting the assist off the inserts.
The Nittany Lions continued to attack the Rutgers defense and managed to squeeze one final goal out of the Scarlet Knights with a third goal from Aurelia Meijer off a penalty corner in the 68th minute.
The hat trick for Meijer is the second of her career and almost a year to the date from the first of her career that was recorded on Oct. 23, 2015 at home against the Iowa Hawkeyes.
Meijer's goals were her seventh, eighth and ninth of the season and moved her into a tie for third on the team this season.
The ever-present presence of Skyler Fretz (Oley, Pa.) was never more apparent than today as the junior made not one, not two, but three defensive saves for Penn State. The three saves for Fretz is a single game career high and improves her season total to five - also a new career high.
Also recording a career high was Kirsten Gochnauer who collected three assist on the day improving from her previous high of one that she achieved on four different occasions. Putsch tied her career high in assist, making this the second time in her career that the Media, Pa. native notched three in one game.
Penn State returns home to take on Indiana in the final home match of the 2016 regular season Friday, Oct. 28 at 6 p.m. ET. The game against Indiana will be Senior Day for our four seniors on this year's squad (Birosik, Celkos, Ehret, Gochnauer.)
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