After two weekends of road play, the Lady Raiders returned home to Tyler’s Field Saturday, hoping to add to last weekend’s win over St. Francis University by besting West Chester. Unfortunately, it was not to be.

The two teams were deadlocked until West Chester’s Samantha Krick scored on Colgate goalkeeper Jacque DeMarco. Krick tapped the ball after teammate Shelly Brooks sent it toward goal on a penalty shot at the 10:35 mark in the first half.

The goal remained unanswered for the remainder of the first. At the 42:40 mark in the second, DeMarco and Brooks faced off again as West Chester was awarded a penalty shot. The ball sailed off Brooks stick, over DeMarco and into the top-right corner of the goal. This upped the score to 2-0; where it stayed for the remainder of the game.

On the stats page, the Golden Rams had 10 penalty corners to the Raiders’ seven. Additionally, they racked up 15 shots on goal to Colgate’s nine. DeMarco made nine saves during the seventy minutes of play, adding to her total of 78; this ranks her third in the nation in saves.

The upcoming weekend marks the opening of Patriot League play for Colgate. After a rough first half of the season, the team hopes to turn things around. They feel that playing such diverse teams has been helping them adapt.

“This point in our season is not meant to be easy because we are preparing for Patriot League play” said junior Lauren Remkus. “Every team we have played so far has had a different style in which they play the game, and this exposure has been to our benefit in that it has challenged us to rise to certain levels and make decisions in situations that arise from another team’s style.”

You can catch the Lady Raiders in action before Saturday’s football game at 11:00 a.m. on Tyler’s Field as they face off against defending conference champion American University.