The field hockey team will sit at .500 moving into Patriot League play this weekend after falling 1-0 to Temple University last Friday and suffering a 5-2 loss to undefeated Syracuse University on Sunday.
The last seven games between the Leopards (3-3 overall) and the Owls (6-1 overall) have been decided by a single point — the majority of them 1-0 — dating back to 2018. Despite last year’s win, the away team could not come back from an early Temple goal two minutes in.
“We say the first five minutes of the game are the most important ones,” echoed freshman midfielder Rosalie van Gool. “It defines a lot.”
Shots were led by van Gool and junior forward Maddie Evans for Lafayette, but neither was able to find the back of the net.
“I think we did get some good opportunities where we hoped for it, so just capitalizing on those,” senior midfielder Josephine van Wijk said.
Senior goalkeeper Raffi Fragomeni was taken out of goal to add freshman forward Lauren Kurek as an extra player on the field with five minutes to go. Freshman midfielder Linda Nova helped put together a final attempt to send the game into overtime, but her shot flew wide, ending the match 1-0.
No. 5 Syracuse (6-0 overall) was a different start for the Maroon and White, who struck first with a point from van Wijk in the first two minutes.
“Starting from Temple going into Syracuse, that five-minute mentality in the beginning actually went a lot better,” she said.
The Orange scratched back five minutes later, but the Leopards regained the lead heading into halftime after van Gool punched in a second-quarter goal.
“Our plan mainly was to keep it on the ground so we can pressure, and that went quite well,” van Gool said.
However, the second half of the game saw Syracuse score four unanswered goals against the Leopards’ defense, bringing the latter to their longest losing streak — three — since 2023.
While according to van Gool, the team was “really connecting with each other” in the first half, she said that their chemistry weakened in the second half.
“Our connection kept going down and down, and they were crushing us a lot, so we just missed the collection of their points,” she said.
The Orange also far outshot the Maroon and White 21-7, with van Wijk and van Gool leading for Lafayette.
“I think we made some maybe unnecessary mistakes,” said van Wijk, who racked up two green cards during Sunday’s play.
The Leopards will look to flip to a winning record on Friday for their rivalry game at Lehigh University (1-4 overall), followed by No. 16 Penn State University (4-1 overall) on Sunday.
“We really, really want to win this game, but I think it’s like every game for us,” van Gool said. “We want to do our best, play our best, be connected to each other, feel like at the end we have put down the game.”
