The Colgate women’s field hockey team faced a grueling week with three games in four days against Siena, Cornell and Saint Francis. 

On Thursday, September 1, the Raiders faced Siena at home on Tyler’s Field, where they faced a disappointing 4-2 loss. The Raiders put up a good fight with junior midfielder Molly Klare and senior midfielder Kayla Robinson each scoring their first goal of the season. Junior goaltender Maria Krull played another impressive game this season, making six crucial saves for the Raiders. 

Ultimately, the Raiders could not overtake Siena. However, head coach Cathy Foto recognized their incredible skill and potential. 

“I thought there were some really good individual performances; Susan Morefield stood out, Whitney Jones stood out, but we really need to find a way to be more focused and more confident in what we’re doing so that when we’re having good performances we can link that together. The unforced errors that we created were kind of tough and really just sank us. We’ll just have to link more consistency from more people to make a better showing,” Foto said. 

On Saturday, September 3, the Raiders faced Cornell on Cornell’s home turf, where they suffered a 5-0 loss. Krull played another impressive game, making nine saves against The Big Red. Senior attacker Emily Brash is credited with the sole shot on goal for the Raiders. 

Despite the Raiders’ best efforts, Cornell came out of the first half ahead 3-0 and netted an additional two goals in the latter half of the game. 

Foto again commended her players’ areas of improvements.  

“We had trouble executing offensively below the 25. When that happens, it puts a lot of pressure on the defense. Despite the loss, there were some great individual performances from Cady Kopsky, Susan Morefield and Molly Klare,” Foto said. 

On Sunday, September 4, the Raiders travelled to Pennsylvania, where they faced the Saint Francis Red Flash. Ultimately ending with a 2-0 loss for the Raiders, Krull played her most impressive game of the season yet, making 14 saves. Neither team managed to net a goal during the first half of the game, Krull halting each of the ten shots on net made by the Red Flash. Senior attacker Whitney Jones achieved the only shot on goal for the Raiders in the first half, nearly scoring a goal. 

The Red Flash managed to pull away in the second half of the game, scoring two goals early on in the second half. Foto commented on Krull’s impressive performance against Saint Francis. 

“Maria was outstanding in goal today. We could not have ask[ed] any more of her or our back line defenders. We will continue to work on our transition so that we can take some pressure off our defense,” Foto said. 

On September 10, the Raiders will face off against Ball State. They hope to bring with them some of the positive lessons that they took away from this week.