Former Knight Grace Dempsey watches the game develop from afar in 2018. The Knights defeated Oneonta 5-1 on Wednesday Nov. 8 to advance to the SUNYAC Championship game (Olga Shvetsova/photo editor).
The Geneseo field hockey team finished the regular season with a 3-2 victory over the visiting University of Rochester Yellowjackets to finish the season with a 17-2 overall record.
The team was led by a dominant performance from junior midfielder Jordan Penkitis, who was responsible for all of Geneseo’s goals in one way or another with two goals and an assist.
Penkitis started the scoring early as she buried a pass from junior forward Haley Clark less than four minutes into the game for her seventh score of the year. The assist gave Clark her SUNYAC-leading 36th point of the season.
Rochester struck back at the start of the eventful second quarter, scoring off of a rebound to pull it to 1-1.
Undeterred, the Knights returned the favor less than five minutes after the tying goal from Rochester as Penkitis intercepted a Yellowjackets pass and was able to send it over to senior defender Julia Kim who put it into the net.
Fitting with the back-and-forth theme, Rochester leveled the score heading into halftime.
The teams came back from the break with a more defensive game, led by sophomore goaltender Natalie Chojnacki’s four-save performance.
In the final quarter’s waning minutes, Penkitis picked off another Rochester pass and ran it down the field into the Yellowjackets’ net for the game-winning goal.
The victory over Rochester was the Knights’ 14th consecutive win this season and brought their home game record to an undefeated 8-0.
After the game, the awards began to flow in for the Knights. For her eight-point performance over the week, Penkitis was awarded with the SUNYAC Offensive Player of the Week. In addition, the Knights were rewarded with the No. 20 Division III Ranking nationally, moving into the top 20 for the first time this season.
Heading into SUNYAC playoffs, Geneseo ranks fourth nationally in scoring with 4.05 goals per game. The Knights also sit fifth in scoring margin, outscoring their opponents by 2.90 goals per game, according to geneseoknights.com
The gears of the championship-chasing steamroller kept rolling this Wednesday Nov. 6 as the Knights trounced the visiting Oneonta Red Dragons 5-1 in the SUNYAC playoff semifinals.
The scoring opened just as quick as the game against Rochester thanks to a strike from Kim, assisted by Penkitis, less than three minutes into the game.
Geneseo’s cohesion and ferocity were evident in the second quarter with two unassisted goals from Clark for her 13th and 14th goals of the season just eight minutes apart. Penkitis scored yet another goal 37 seconds later with help from senior forward Elisa Arcara.
The Knights’ onslaught of five unanswered goals finished as Kim found the back of the net for her second score on the day and eighth on the season.
Oneonta notched a late goal to avoid being shutout, but it was too little too late as the Knights advanced to the SUNYAC Championship game.
The Knights led an aggressive attack all day, putting up 24 shots in total and 15 shots on goal while only having to call on Chojnacki to make five saves at the other end during the win.
Next up, Geneseo welcomes the Cortland Red Dragons into town on Saturday Nov. 9 as the Knights try to claim the program’s third conference title.