Yale field hockey ended its home opener against Quinnipiac in a victory with minutes to spare.
With Sunday’s match, the field hockey team launched its third annual Get A Grip fundraiser for the Myotonic Dystrophy Foundation in honor of teammate Ona McConnell ’13, who has been battling the disease since her freshman year. The Bulldogs came out of the weekend with a win and a loss, and a large turnout of fans, family and the Yale Precision Marching Band attended the home game to support both the team and the campaign.
“Our first weekend of games is always filled with a combination of nerves and excitement, especially with the Get A Grip campaign happening during this time as well,” midfielder Erica Borgo ’14 said. “We expected both teams to come out ready to play, considering they already had a few more games under their belts than us, so we knew we had to be on our toes.”
With the graduation of high-scoring players last spring and a shifting of roles up front, three freshmen had the chance to prove themselves as part of the starting lineup. Defender Molly Wolf ’16 and Nicole Wells ’16 scored in the second half of Yale’s game against the Bobcats on Sunday and shifted the balance to propel the Elis to a 3–2 win.
“Playing in my first collegiate game [against Fairfield] was obviously a little nerve-wracking,” Wolf said. “It’s exciting to get to take the field with my team and see all our hard work pay off.”
The Bulldogs had fallen behind in the first half 2–0. But then the freshmen stepped up, and Borgo followed with the game winning goal off of a pass from forward Gabby Garcia ’14 with 4:54 left in the game.
Spectator Kirsten Leung ’14 said she had a lot of fun watching Sunday’s home opener.
“You could tell that the team had been practicing really hard, had a lot of energy and were all working together to win for a great cause,” she said.
On Friday, the Elis were down early on in their first game of the season against the Fairfield Stags. Yale allowed three goals in the first 11 minutes of play. Although Stags scored only once more in the remainder of the game, the Bulldogs fell 4–0 in their first contest.
Yale ended the game with 15 saves in net by Emily Cain ’14 and nine shots on the opposing goal.
The Elis will take a break until next Saturday when they will take on Hofstra (3–1) at Johnson Field at 1 p.m.