Rutgers Field Hockey Downs Villanova, 4-2
Sep 24 | Field Hockey
PISCATAWAY, N.J. (September 24, 2010) – The Rutgers field hockey team (2-7) used a four goal second half to down BIG EAST rival Villanova, 4-2. RU was paced by junior Nicole Gentile (Jamison, Pa.) who netted two goals.
“This was one of the most rewarding wins that I’ve ever experienced with a team,” said head coach Liz Tchou. “We haven’t had the best record over the past years, we haven’t beat Villanova, we haven’t been able to prove how good we are. We’ve had good teams in the past and to be able to prove it today was great. This win is for all the teams that I’ve coached here that weren’t able to feel a win against Villanova or a BIG EAST team.”
The first half saw a defensive struggle leading to a 0-0 score as the teams headed to the intermission.
RU broke the scoreless draw less than five minutes into the second half as Carlie Rouh (Berlin, N.J,) crossed a beautiful ball to Gentile who beat the VU keeper low.
Less than two minutes later, Gentile had struck again this time taking a pass from Gia Nappi (Fairfield, N.J.) making nice run and beating the keeper with a blistering shot fired into the right corner of the goal pushing the RU lead to 2-0.
The Wildcats struck back when Abby Sordoni took a ball from Meghan Ryan and fired it past a diving Vickie Lavell (Haddon Township, N.J.) to cut the Scarlet Knights’ lead to one.
Rutgers pushed its lead back to two when Lisa Patron (Sewall, N.J.) made a beautiful run to get one-on-one with the VU keeper. From there, Patron used a beautiful deak to pull Megan Goelz out of her net and then rifled the ball into the open cage.
Villanova struck back two minutes later when Lauren Wuzzardo converted off a corner to cut RU’s lead to 3-2.
The Scarlet Knights didn’t let the Wildcats goal phase them as they went right back on the offensive attack getting their fourth goal of the match at 58:35 when Nappi found the ball in the middle of the circle and drove it into the right side of the cage giving RU a 4-2 lead which they would not relinquish using lockdown defense to secure its first win over Villanova since 2000.
“The team worked their tails off,” Tchou said. “Every player was a leader on the field today and that’s really cool to see.”
The Scarlet Knights return to action this Sunday when they travel to West Chester, Pa. for a 1 p.m. matchup with the West Chester University Golden Rams.
