After an impressive comeback and a win on Friday over Bryant, the Yale field hockey team fell to No. 2 Syracuse on Sunday, coming away from the weekend with a split record.
On Friday, Yale (2–3, 0–0 Ivy) pulled off an impressive turnaround to win its fourth game of the season. For Bryant (1–7, 0–0 Metro Atlantic), this was their third game against Ivy League foes, having previously lost to Harvard and Brown. The match against Yale would prove to be no better for the team from Bryant. While Bryant started off playing well, scoring two goals within two minutes of each other during the first half, the Elis were able to turn the momentum to their advantage and pull out a 3–2 victory.
“The most challenging part of the game on Friday was seeing Bryant score two goals nearly two minutes within each other,” said Nicole Wells ’16, a staff reporter for the News. “That should not have happened. We came back easily and ended up finishing with three goals.”
Victoria Danby scored Bryant’s first goal at 16:10, making this the seventh match in a row she has scored for her team. At 17:25, just one minute and 15 seconds later, Emily Perryman scored, putting Bryant up 2–0. The Elis, however, were resilient, and responded with three goals of their own.
Roughly five minutes after Bryant’s second goal, Carol Middough ’18 — who at the time accounted for all of Yale’s goals for the season — scored for the Elis, cutting Bryant’s lead in half. Yale went on to tie the score before the end of the first half with a goal by Evagelia Toffoloni ’19, the first of her career.
“The best part of our performance against Bryant was our relentlessness,” Middough said. “We didn’t let their goals affect our game and we rallied to tie it up after the first half and then ultimately pull ahead by the second half.”
The Bulldogs did not get a rest after the game against Bryant. On Sunday, the Elis took on No. 2 Syracuse (5–0, 1–0 Atlantic Coast).
Still, the Bulldogs were unfazed by playing twice in a weekend. According to Wells, because the field hockey season is full of weekend games, the team rarely plays only one game per weekend.
“This kind of two-game weekend schedule is something that we take into consideration during our normal trainings on the turf, track and in the weight room,” Wells said. “[The team] prioritizes quick recovery rates and high endurance so that we can power through a weekend like this one.”
But the Elis were unable to come away with a win in their second game of the weekend. Playing against Syracuse, Yale could not contain the Orange’s strong offensive play, and the game ended in a final score of 5–0 in favor of Syracuse.
The Elis also struggled to assert themselves offensively, finishing the second half with only six shots — in comparison, Syracuse totaled 36 shots.
Senior forward Emma Russell scored Syracuse’s third goal, making her Syracuse’s all-time leading scorer. She has scored a total of 48 goals in her career — with six goals in seven games this season alone.
Despite their loss, the Bulldogs are looking ahead to the future. Sunday’s game was the Elis’ last game before starting Ivy play against rival Harvard.
“Over the next week we’ll continue to look to build on the great strides we’ve been making to bring the energy and intensity we have been playing with,” forward Alyssa Weiss ’17 said.
Yale will host the Crimson this Saturday. The game is set to start at 1 p.m.