The Geneseo women’s field hockey team lost its second game of the season on Sept. 7 to rival University of Rochester, 4-1. The loss puts the Knights at 1-2 for the season; however, they have not played against a conference opponent yet.
Rochester scored within the first eight minutes of the game off of a rebound to go up 1-0. Head coach Jessica Seren said she wasn’t happy with how the team came out early on, and she called a timeout soon after.
“I think we answered quite well after that,” Seren said. For the remainder of the first half, Seren said that though it seemed like Geneseo created more opportunities than Rochester, nothing came of them and the Knights went into halftime still down 1-0.
“Although we were down at half, the team felt confident we were still in it,” Seren said. At the beginning of the second half, Geneseo created scoring chances but failed to get the ball through the net. Eventually, these missed opportunities caught up with the Knights and Rochester scored to make it 2-0 with 25 minutes left in the game.
Junior forward Kerry Hosford cut the lead to 2-1 with about five minutes left in the game, off of an assist from senior forward Chellie Johnson. Rochester responded almost immediately with two goals to put the game out of reach.
Geneseo outshot Rochester 15-12, but only five of those opportunities were on net. The offense also had two more corner kicks than the opponents. Much like in their previous game against Salisbury University, the Knights’ offense struggled to put the ball in net despite an abundance of chances. The team tallied just one goal in the last 140 minutes of game time.
Seren said she isn’t particularly worried about the lack of offensive output as of now.
“We are sticking with what we have for now. The season is still young,” she said. “We will have lots of opportunities to figure out who we are and get where we want to be.”
One reason for this optimism could be junior forward Kayla DeAngelis. Although she has not put together much of a scoring outburst yet, she led the team in goals and points last year and was a member of the All-SUNYAC first team.
“She plays on the right side, and we depend on her to beat defenders one-on-one, cross balls and set up teammates,” Seren said.
The Knights travel to Utica College on Wednesday Sept. 19.
Editor’s Note: The Knights traveled to William Smith College on Wednesday Sept. 12 and dropped a 4-0 decision. The Herons, who are No. 19-ranked in the latest National Field Hockey Coaches Association poll, outshot the Knights 18-5.