Sport: Field Hockey

Hometown: Rye, NY

Major: Undecided

Why Olivia? She scored two of the three Colgate goals in the season opener and earned Patriot League Player of the Week.

1. It's always great to start the year off with a win, but how important is it for team morale, unity and chemistry that you earned the victory in the first game?

In every game, our objective as a team is to play our hardest, use the competition to improve our skills and of course to enjoy the sport we love. It is a privilege to be victorious at the end of the game, and we under­stand that it does not come without hard work. We went into this game with a new level of intensity partly because it was our season opener and also because our old assistant coach, Beth Maddox, is now the head coach of Ball State. There was a new feeling of energy that we used to our advantage. It was important for us to win because the first game always sets the tone for the remainder of the season. This game showed us how to best be successful as a team, and I hope we will have the discipline to keep up this level of play. This year our team goal is not only to qualify for the Patriot League Tournament, but to also compete once we are there. If we are to achieve this goal, we must continue to work hard, as exciting as it is to win there is always more to improve on.

2. How has your game improved from last year to this year?

We are extremely lucky to have coaches who take the time to work on our individual skills. In the off-season, I focused specifically on my defensive skills in one-on-one situations. I still have space to improve, but my confidence level has increased. My teammates have also helped my ability thanks to their guidance and direction. We have such talented upperclassmen, and their presence on the field helps set a great example for myself and the other underclassmen. I hope to continue to polish my offensive skills so that I can help the team qualify for the tournament, which is our ultimate team goal.

3. After constant practice in preseason, was it great to finally get out on the field?

Lehigh came out hitting the ball right away. We were able to put up a fight and stay with them for a few innings and tied the score up. But in the last few innings, we had some errors that cost us, and we weren't able to string hits together.

4. Lastly, you took home Patriot League Player of the Week this past week. Any thoughts?

I feel honored to have been selected for this award. There are many strong players in the Patriot League Tournament, and to be compared to them is an accomplishment in itself. My efforts alone were not the only reason for our win against Ball State. Field hockey is the ultimate team sport, and our team had a great game. This is shown as we swept the Patriot League awards, with my teammates Elaine and Amanda both acknowledged for their performances. I am so proud of our team, and I'm excited to show our fans what we can do this weekend.

The Colgate women's lacrosse team trav­eled to Annapolis, M.D. this past Saturday to face Navy in its fourth conference game of the season. The Raiders fell to the Midshipmen by a final score of 14-11, which marked their first Patriot League loss of the year.

Senior midfielder Colleen Bubnack de­manded attention with a game-high five goals. Senior attacker Kate Bergstrom was also a noteworthy player tallying four points on two goals and two assists. Junior mid­fielder Courtney Miller remains one goal shy of 100 in her career, having scored a goal in Saturday's game.

The teams played evenly in the first nine minutes of the game. Bubnack and first-year midfielder Alison Flood were both able to find the back of the net. Colgate took a 2-1 lead over Navy before the hosts scored three unanswered goals to jump ahead with a 4-2 advantage over the Raiders. The Midshipmen would not give up their lead for the rest of the game.

First-year midfielder Monica White put Colgate back on the scoreboard with her 18th goal of the season. Navy answered back with two goals, widening its lead to a 5-3 advan­tage over the Raiders with fifteen minutes remaining in the first frame of play.

"We hurt ourselves," Bergstrom said, re­flecting on the first half of play. "We made some really critical mistakes, turning the ball over for no reason. A true testament to that is the halftime score – we had beaten them on draw controls 12-2, but they were win­ning 8-5. We needed to settle down after each goal and take time off the clock possessing the ball."

Junior attacker Katie Sullivan sliced the Midshipmen's lead in half with a tally assisted by Miller; however, Navy quickly jumped back into action with three of the next four goals to take an 8-5 advantage over Colgate right at the end of the half.

At the opening of the second half, Navy continued to build momentum with three consecutive goals in the first six minutes of play. The Midshipmen's 11-5 lead over Col­gate was the largest up to that point in the game. Colgate slowly began to chip away at the ever-widening gap on the scoreboard with goals from Miller and Bubnack, bringing the score to 11-7 with 20:45 left of play.

Navy fired back with three straight to wid­en its advantage to 14-7. Colgate attempted a comeback with four goals in the final 13 minutes of play. Bubnack and Bergstrom tal­lied two goals each, but this last stand was not enough to overcome the deficit.

The Raiders were outshot by their oppo­nents yet again, as the Midshipmen claimed a 32-28 shot advantage over 'Gate. Colgate attackers were also unable to take advantage of free position shot opportunities. The Raid­ers received seven of these chances, but only Bubnack and Miller were able to capitalize on their opportunities.

On the defensive end, there was a fair fight for possession of the ball. Colgate crushed Navy on the draw with a total of 18 draw controls, compared to the Midshipmen's mea­ger nine. Miller tallied six of the 18 controls for her team. On the ground, Navy was able to take its advantage with 18 out of the 31 ground balls. Junior goaltender Christina Roa had seven saves on the day.

"Its frustrating to lose to Navy – that is our third loss to them in a row," Bergstrom explained. "We wanted to beat them so badly; but, from here on out, we need to focus on Lafayette and Lehigh. If we beat both of them then we put ourselves in decent position for hosting the Patriot League Tournament. If we take care of those two teams, it will come down to who wins in the Navy and Lehigh game. We'd love to host. It's so much fun."

Navy and Colgate are now in a three-way tie for first with Lehigh. With two games remaining in the season, Colgate players understand that it is time to step it up.

"We're going to have a really focused week of practice while we prepare to play Lafay­ette," Bergstom said. "This week in practice we are going to work on the basics, simple things that we were executing well in the first part of the season."

The Raiders will take the field again this Saturday in a home match-up against Lafayette at 1 p.m. on Tyler's field.

On Saturday April 9, 2011, the Colgate women's track and field team traveled to Ithaca, New York to partake in the Cornell Spring In­vitational. Once again, team scores were not re­corded at the meet, but a number of individual athletes and relay squads posted very impres­sive numbers and represented Colgate well at the competition.

The Raiders followed senior sprinter Michele Miller's dominant performance last weekend with a strong collective effort in the sprinting events at Cornell, headlined by several top-five finishes. In the 100-meter dash, senior sprinter Emily Hepworth started the meet with a bang for the Raiders, placing fourth overall. Her final time of 13.07 was just .15 seconds away from qualifying for a podium position in the event.

Miller followed up her season-best perfor­mance in the 200 and 400-meter dashes last week with another impressive performance on Saturday. In the 200-meter dash, Miller blazed past much of the competition, placing third overall in the event. Her time of 25.46 was just over a second off of the leading time, posted by Cornell's Melissa Hewitt. In the 400-meter dash, the senior flew out of the starting blocks en route to a final time of 57.41, good enough for fourth overall in the event. Sophomore teammate Amy Sleeper finished close behind Miller in eighth place, hitting the tape with a time of 1:00.78.

In the long distance events, junior Elise DeRoo once again took the competition by storm. DeRoo took to the track in the 3000-me­ter run, and placed second overall, posting a school-record time of 9:49.02. The time demol­ished the previous record of 10:13.73 and qual­ified DeRoo for the ECAC Championships. Consistently one of Colgate's top performers, DeRoo was rewarded for her strong showing by being named the Patriot League Female Runner of the Week.

"The great thing about running is that the goal-setting never has to stop if you don't want it to. You can always try to run faster than your fastest time. Often times getting a PR [personal record] is more gratifying than breaking school records or coming in first." DeRoo said.

The Raiders wrapped up their strong meet with notable performances in the relay events. In the 4x100-meter relay, Colgate's ‘A' squad of Hepworth, first-year Jamie King-Prunty, junior Alexandra Atkinson and Miller used smooth transitions to cruise to a third place finish in the event with a final time of 48.71. In the 4x400- meter relay, they finished in an impressive second place, snapping the tape in 3:56.75.

This weekend, Colgate will participate in a two-day meet in Lewisburg, Penn­sylvania to partake in the Bison Invite at Bucknell University.

"It's always an exciting meet filled with good competition, so it's a great opportunity to shoot for a PR. I think we'll see a lot of good times coming out of this weekend." DeRoo said.