Field Hockey Team Drops Two Close Games by Liz Logan After three thrillingly close games including two wins at the start of the season, Oberlin’s field hockey team is finally realizing how tough the competition in the North Coast Athletic Conference really is. This week the Yeowomen suffered two close losses, against the Wittenberg Tigers 1-0 on Saturday, and another from Ohio Wesleyan 2-1 on Wednesday. The Yeowomen are perhaps no longer on top of the world, and will consequently have to work a lot harder to keep the heat on their opponents. The loss to the Tigers was a shutout for the entire first period until the stalemate was broken when Wittenberg scored 27 minutes into the second period. “It was a close game,” first-year Jamie Johnson said, “throughout both periods the ball just kept going back and forth.” Said Coach Liz Graham, “Wittenberg was a pretty good game — I was fairly happy with the way be played for most of it. The team worked well together. We really should not have allowed the goal, but it was tough — they had an offensive corner and a second of hesitation cost us the game.” Senior goalie Pam Walker is proud of her team’s performance against Wittenberg, especially since the Yeowomen were literally not on their turf, playing on the Tigers’ astro-turf rather than grass. Said Walker, “Our stick skills were really awesome. It was really impressive how we were able to dodge their players on the turf we weren’t used to playing on. Wittenberg is a strong team, and we usually lose to them by at least three goals — but this year it was only one which is showing we’re stronger. We’ll beat them on grass.” The team worked as a united whole against the Tigers. “They had lot of shots on goal. Our defense was really strong in keeping those shots out of the cage — they really stepped up in the second half. As a team we played well — the senior defense and the midfielders really pulled together, like Jessica and Briana to name a few. We’ll see more of that togetherness and it will lead to victories like we had before,” Walker said. The hard-fought struggle with Wittenberg proved to be a sharp contrast to the Yeowomen’s performance in the game against The Battling Bishops of Ohio Wesleyan. Said Walker, “The game [with Wittenberg] was definitely a fight, which is more than I can say for the Ohio Wesleyan game.” Oberlin was up 1-0 after the first period thanks to a goal by senior Emily Johnson with an assist by junior Chaney Stewman. But unfortunately, the Yeowomen let The Battling Bishops come back to tie them in the second period and then dominate in overtime for a final score of 2-1. Said Graham, “It was horrible. Mentally, we were really taken out of the game. We didn’t do things well that we normally do well, like for instance, our passing was shaky. In the Wittenberg game both teams played well, so the game wasn’t anything exceptional. In the Ohio Wesleyan game, both teams played poorly, and they just a had few moments when they played well.” When asked if there were any particularly exciting or tension-filled moments in the Ohio Wesleyan matchup, Graham replied, “The game was two hours of tension-filled moments. It was a very difficult game to watch. The Wittenberg game was not tension-filled. We were playing well, and that gives the game a good tension. When we’re playing badly its more like an ‘I’m going to throw up’ tension.” Walker seemed disappointed by her team’s level of play. “Our mission was to win by at least three goals against Ohio Wesleyan, and that didn’t happen. We’re definitely a stronger team than they are, but we are tending to let up in the second half of games, and that’s not a good pattern. We just didn’t pull it together. That game was not a good representation of our skills,” Walker lamented. Said senior captain Jessica Raynor, “It was the worst game we’ve ever played. It was a game we should have won, possibly even easily.” The game was an unexpected struggle for the Yeowomen who had already experienced several successes this season. Said Walker, “Overtime was rough because they had a weak goalie so they really tightened up their defense and put everyone they could in our way. It was a frustrating game because, like [against] Earlham, everyone on their team clumps over the goal.” The team as a whole has regrets over their performance. Said Walker, “We didn’t play up to our potential, and there’s no doubt in my mind we’ll beat them by a lot next time. We need to communicate more, be more aggressive, and play our own game — a lot of times we fall to the other team’s lower skill level when we get frustrated.” Said Raynor, “We got distracted by a lot of things we couldn’t control, like the fact that we only had one ref’ and he showed up late so the game didn’t start on time.” “We had a stroke on their goal and Jenny missed it. We would have won had that gone in, so it was really tough. Another time like that was when Vanessa scored in the second half, and the ref called it back. That was another place where we could have won. There were a lot of miscalls on us as well as the other team.” Walker is always impressed with the spirit her team brings to the game despite the fact that they suffered a loss. “The Ohio Wesleyan players were pushy and said nasty things to us, so I was impressed with how much sportsmanship our team has. A lot of teams we’ve played have been rude, but we always respect them and shake hands at the end of the game with smiles on our faces. We leave all our frustration and anger on the field, and a lot of other teams don’t show the same respect.” On Saturday, the Yeowomen will play Kenyon and they are looking forward to a vibrant comeback. Said Graham, “We’re going to work on passing until then, moving the ball laterally and taking advantage of our speed — things we didn’t do with Ohio Wesleyan.” Said Raynor, “We definitely have to win and score a lot of goals on Kenyon on Saturday. We want to go back to playing the way we played at the beginning of the season. Kenyon has always been below Oberlin in the NCAC conference, but they are close competition — we’re more successful than they are in the conference, but we’re still closely matched.” The team is also looking forward to their upcoming rematches with Wittenberg and Ohio Wesleyan in home games. Said Graham, “It’s hard to say we should have won these games. There’s a general feeling that we let them slip away. Wittenberg is a good team, and they play on turf, which they’re used to and we’re not. We have a good chance of beating them when they come here.” The Yeowomen are optimistically continuing their quest for greatness. They are particularly excited to be playing Ohio Wesleyan again this coming Thursday. Said Raynor, “Its good they’re coming so soon after this defeat, because we’ll still be thinking about the game and we’ll be ready to turn around and beat them. We know we could have scored a lot on them — they’re last in the conference. We just weren’t on our game. We were slower and less skillful, but we can overcome that. Raynor confirmed that her team ran out of gas. “We didn’t have a the aggression, energy, and desire that we had with Denison and Wittenberg which were both intense games. We didn’t show we wanted it as much. We were so psyched about how easy it is to beat them that we forgot we have to work. We’re hoping when we play Kenyon we will get back on track and out of this rut.” Although the Yeowomen are hopeful towards the remainder of the season, their future is still uncertain. Said Graham, “These two games were a prediction of the future of competition — all the games are going to be tough like this. There are a lot of closely paired teams in the conference this year with only a few exceptions, so every game is going to be close.”

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