After clinching its season opener against Virginia Commonwealth University last week, the Yale field hockey team suffered a disappointing loss against UConn Wednesday.

The Bulldogs (1-0) fell, 6-0, to No. 8 UConn (3-1), allowing the Huskies to improve their record to 24-0 against the Elis.

Midfielder Heather Orrico ’07 said the Huskies were a tough team to face.

“Going into the game, we definitely thought we had a shot at beating UConn,” Orrico said. “Unfortunately the momentum wasn’t in our favor and we couldn’t regain it.”

The Bulldogs only took nine shots, while UConn was able to attempt 30. In a game with no fouls and no offsides, the team emerged with a good attitude.

“After the game, our team was surprisingly very positive,” forward Harriet Thayer ’08 said. “UConn was a great team and a highly competitive opponent.”

Goalkeeper Elizabeth Friedlander ’07 aided the Elis’ defense efforts by making nine saves, but it wasn’t enough to offset the team’s slow offense. Several players said they needed to attack more, and the Bulldogs’ offense was unable to score against the Huskies’ strong defensive lineup — which has only let through one goal this season.

“We need to work on a few things,” Thayer said. “We should work on our basics, and we need to get better receptions. We needed to score more and generate more attack.”

Yale faces Princeton this Saturday in a matchup that the Bulldogs expect will show marked improvement over today’s game.

“We lost as a team and will definitely move on,” Thayer said. “Our defense played really well despite the outcome, and we’re still very positive for Saturday’s game against Princeton and we will go into it strong.”

Several players said the team could learn from its loss to UConn.

“It was a really disappointing loss, but the good thing about it was that everyone still came out of it with a positive outlook,” midfielder Katie Cantoro ’09 said. “We didn’t let this get to us. We saw things we could fix in our game but we also saw a lot of things that were right, so that was good.”

Players on the team said they feel the optimistic attitude of the team as a whole will help them go far.

“We really had a great mentality after the game,” Thayer said. “The game was an example of how we need to really start to play as a team. We can do better and are going to bring what we learned into Princeton’s game.”

Cantoro said she thinks the team will be in top form this weekend.

“I think this game will definitely help us against Princeton,” Cantoro said. “We learned the specific aspects of our games to change, and that can help to tweak the parts that weren’t completely spot-on so that we can play to the best of our ability on Saturday.”