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SHIPPENSBURG, Pa. – The No. 1-ranked Shippensburg University field hockey team held off a strong second half rally from Slippery Rock University to edge The Rock, 2-1, in Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference Western Division action Tuesday afternoon.
Slippery Rock trailed 2-0 at the half after a strong opening period performance from the hosts, but The Rock came out firing on all cylinders in the second half to put the top-ranked Raiders on the ropes. SRU posted an 8-4 edge in shots and a 5-3 advantage in corners in the final 35 minutes.
Raider keeper Ciarra Delost may have saved the game for her team when she stopped a penalty stroke from
Allison Shade in the 37th minute to preserve the 2-0 advantage.
Kelsey Gustafson cut the deficit in half when she scored on a rebounded shot from
Kaili Simmons in the 60th minute, but The Rock could not complete the comeback over the final 10 minutes.
Slippery Rock falls to 3-1 overall and 0-1 in the PSAC-West, while Shippensburg improves to 5-0 and 1-0 in league play.
Shippensburg, just ranked No. 1 by the NFHCA earlier Tuesday, was coming off a 3-0 dominant win last Saturday against then No. 1 and defending national champion West Chester.
The Raiders finished the game with advantages of 22-11 in total shots, 8-6 in shots on goal and 14-5 in corners.
Courtney Lee took the loss for Slippery Rock after recording six saves. Carenna Neely played the first 35 minutes in goal for Ship and made one save before giving way to Delost in the second half. Delost finished with one goal allowed and three saves, including the crucial stop on the penalty stroke.
Slippery Rock opened the game with a great scoring chance and nearly went up 1-0 in just the second minute of the game.
Lindsay Brown took a shot on an open goal but Shippensburg defender Ari Saytar made a defensive save to keep the score 0-0. It proved to be a momentum shifter as the rest of the half was controlled by the Raiders.
After Lee saved the first six shots of the game, Shippensburg opened the scoring with a goal from Tori Ricker in the 30th minute when she converted an assist from Bre White. White added her own score off an assist from Katie Shoop in the 33rd minute to send it to the break. The Raiders posted a 18-4 advantage in shots and an 11-0 edge in corners in the opening half.
Delost made the play of the game with her save on the penalty corner early in the second half and Slippery Rock slowly began to wear down the Raiders.
Gustafson finally broke through after she played a rebound off a hard shot from Simmons and scored at the 59:06 mark.
After the goal, Shippensburg was able to maintain possession and hold The Rock without another shot as time wound down.
Slippery Rock will be back in action this weekend when they play back-to-back road games at Bloomsburg Friday at 2 p.m. and Millersville Saturday at 4.p.m.
