The ladies of the field hockey team had a busy week as they played host to three separate games.

Friday brought the Red Flash of St. Francis to town. The game started off fast with two goals from sophomore Katelyn Nerbonne at 2:30 and 10:53. The first came off a rebound from a shot by junior Laura Flisnik, and the second off a pass from junior Lauren Carey.

Colgate maintained the lead until Carey found the net twelve minutes into the second off a penalty corner pass from classmate Maddie Watrobski. The 3-0 score held until 54:07, when St. Francis finally found the cage. However, Colgate answered back at 58:15 when first-year Laura Denenga finalized the score at 4-1.

“The biggest moment of the St. Francis game was when we started putting in substitutions in the second half,” Watrobski said. “The substitutions were so fluid and the intensity [of the game] never went down; each player came in as if they were playing the whole game, every girl played her heart out.”

The ladies looked to clinch another win on Saturday against the Lock Haven Lady Eagles. Ten minutes in, Lock Haven scored its first goal of the game. At 28:27 they followed it up when Susann Hobart drew Raider goalie Sarah Penderson out of the goal, only to swoop past her and find the cage.

Thirsty seconds later Colgate found the cage as sophomore Mika Ella-Tang drew down the middle and shot one from the top of the circle.

“I think this season we have really grown as a unit,” Ella-Tang said. “You can definitely see that we are playing as a team; everybody’s on the same page.”

The 2-1 score stood for most of the game as the teams fought not only each other, but the dank weather as well. At 59:15 Lock Haven found the net again for their last goal of the day.

But Colgate would not give up. Keeping play on their offensive end of the field, the team of Senior Natalie Plesniarski, Watrobski and Flisnik capitalized on a penalty corner. Flisnik’s shot raised the score to 3-2, where it stayed for the remainder of the game. The loss ended Colgate’s four game winning streak.

Wednesday rolled around, bringing with it No. 18 Albany. The ladies hoped to capitalize on the opportunity to impress their fans with a win.

Colgate got on the board early, when senior Lauren Remkus scored the game’s first goal off a pass from Carey at 9:23. But Albany answered back with back-to-back goals at 16:38 and 25:48.

The 2-1 score held through the half until Albany found the net again off a penalty corner at 41:31. Seven minutes later, a heated battle around the cage produced another Albany goal. Though credited to Vanessa Walter, there was some confusion as to whether the goal might have come off of a Colgate stick. Colgate contested the goal, however, the score stood.

For the rest of the game the story was all Albany, as the Great Danes score their fifth and sixth goals at 50:18 and 51:59. While the prior came off a penalty corner, the later was a straight dribble into the cage after Penderson was caught down.

The Raiders look to recover from their losses as they host West Chester on Saturday at noon. Admission to the games at Tyler’s Field are free.