Nov. 12, 2017
| 3 | 4 |
| Sherman Complex | Storrs, Conn. | 426 | |
| POST GAME LINKS |
| Box Score (HTML) | Box Score (PDF) |
| FINAL STATISTICS |
STORRS, Conn. - With a trip to the Final Four on the line, Penn State (17-5) put up a valiant effort against the No. 1 UConn Huskies, ultimately falling 4-3 Sunday afternoon at Sherman Complex. Penn State ends the 2017 season at 17-5 overall.
"Congratulations to Connecticut, I thought it was a great field hockey game today," said head coach Charlene Morett-Curtiss.
"If we had taken care of the ball a little better around the 25, we might have gotten a different result. I love the way our kids competed today, I thought they played with a lot of intensity and obviously a lot of heart. Connecticut is a very solid team, and they got some great looks in front of the cage and put just one more in than we did. So I'm proud of our season and what our seniors have done for this program. Shay [Cannon] and Skyler [Fretz], Shay had a great day with two goals today and Skyler has been solid all year. It was a great tribute to the seniors, those two as captains leading us to this point in the season, just disappointing that we couldn't go further," Morett-Curtiss finished.
UConn (21-0), who has played as the No. 1 team in the nation for most of the season, opened up the game with a goal after only 4:46 of play. Casey Umstead deflected a shot off a penalty corner attempt into the goal to give the Huskies a one-goal lead early in the first half.
The Huskies scored their second goal of the game about 10-minutes later when Svea Boker redirected a Charlote Collins pass past Jenny Rizzo to extend the UConn lead to two that queued a Penn State timeout by Morett-Curtiss.
Out of the break, Penn State scored twice to even the game at two goals apiece before halftime.
Shay Cannon scored her fourth goal of the season using a key pass from Moira Putsch to put the Nittany Lions on the board in the 26th minute of the game.
Five minutes later, Bes Bovelander scored her fourth goal of the season on an insert from Mary Nell Smith on the penalty corner attempt in the 32nd minute.
At the half, Penn State led in shots and penalty corners over the Huskies earning six and four, respectively.
The second-half saw UConn again go on a two-goal streak, first in the 46th-minute as Charlotte Veitner scored followed by a Barbara Hoogen goal in the 51st-minute to make it 4-2 with 19-minutes left to play.
Abby Myers closed the gap in the 56th-minute when her shot went off a UConn defender and into the cage to make it 4-3 in favor of the Huskies with Penn State on the charge.
Just two minutes later, the Nittany Lions scored what looked to be the equalizing goal to make it a 4-4 contest before a video review concluded with the goal being disallowed. The goal would've been the third of the day for senior Shay Cannon before it was wiped off the board.
The Nittany Lions had a few more opportunities to knot it up before ultimately running out of time as the clock hit 0:00.
Penn State finishes the season with an overall record of 17-5 with all five losses coming at the hand of ranked opponents.
This was the 32nd appearance for the Nittany Lions in the NCAA Tournament which is good for second all-time trailing only North Carolina (35).
For more on Nittany Lion Field Hockey, log onto www.GoPSUsports.com or follow the team on Twitter and Instagram at @PennStateFH, and on Facebook at PennStateFieldHockey.