Flashes swept out of weekend

Tyler McIntosh

With losses to Miami and Ball State this weekend, Kent State’s chances of a fourth consecutive Mid-American Conference regular season championship look bleak at best.

Despite the two losses, coach Kathleen Schanne focused on the positives the Flashes could take from the weekend road trip.

“I thought we played smart defense in a lot of areas,” Schanne said. “We had good footwork. I think we are shooting the ball more and attacking better. There are a lot of positives to take from this weekend even though we didn’t get the results that we would have liked.”

Kent State (5-11, 2-5 MAC) went into Saturday’s game looking for a third straight season-sweep of Ball State (5-9, 4-2 MAC). But early into the first half, it was clear that a sweep would not be happening this season.

It took 22 minutes for Lindsay Quay to score three goals and give the Cardinals a 3-0 lead. This was the second hat-trick allowed by Kent State this season.

Less than a minute later, Quay assisted another goal to give the Cardinals a 4-0 lead over the Flashes.

Schanne said her players did not play like themselves in the first half.

“We were not playing our game,” Schanne said. “In the first half we were not playing Kent State field hockey. We weren’t passing as well as we have been. A lot of the ball movement and things that we were doing well were not there.”

Schanne said in the second half Kent State came out and played the type of field hockey that the team had been playing coming into the game.

In the second half, Kent State had 10 shots to Ball State’s two. Kent State also tallied six corners to Ball State’s one. But Kent State could only convert two of those shots into goals.

Junior midfielder Charlotte Muller scored Kent State’s first goal of the game with 10 minutes left to play when she scored off the team’s seventh corner of the game. Senior forward Kate Perry and sophomore back Stephanie Bernthal both assisted on the play.

Perry added her 10th goal of the season to make the final score 4-2. Muller assisted on the goal. This was Kent State’s first loss at Ball State since 2002.

Although the end result was the same, Schanne seemed more pleased with her team’s play the previous day at Miami (7-9, 4-2 MAC).

“I thought we outplayed Miami,” Schanne said. “We did a really great job.”

After surrendering an early goal to Miami, Kent State tied the game when senior forward Elizabeth Lahey centered the ball into Perry who then shot it around Miami goalie Megan Stengal.

The teams would go into the half tied at 1-1. Early in the second half, Danielle Perreconne gave Miami a 2-1 lead when she deflected a shot from the top of the corner past Kara Copeland, Kent State junior goalie.

Schanne said the Flashes had several of opportunities to tie the game in the second half and that she was happy with the pressure that they applied on Miami.

“I called a timeout with about six minutes left to go in the game and after that Miami did not cross the 50-yard line for the rest of the game,” Schanne said.

It appeared that Muller had tied the game for Kent State late in the second half, but her goal was waved off when the referee determined the shot was too high.

Kent State will play Northwestern (6-7, 1-2 Big Ten) 2 p.m. today at Murphy Mellis field.

Contact field hockey reporter Tyler McIntosh at [email protected].