Coming into today's game, Eastern University Field Hockey has earned penalty corners at a high rate. The Eagles, however, have not been comfortable with their rate of execution on these opportunities. Today, however, coach Azzarano's squad converted three penalty corners into goals as the Eagles earned a hard-fought 3-2 overtime win at Kenyon College.
With the second seed in the PAC sewn up after Wednesday's 2-0 win over Misericordia, the Eagles took advantage of Fall break to travel to Ohio to take on Kenyon in a non-conference game between two NCAA tournament teams from 2006.
It appeared that Eastern had taken an early lead on a shot from Stephanie Moyer, but the high shot was ruled dangerous and was disallowed. The hosts jumped to an early 1-0 lead on a goal from Caroline Graham, and were able to hold that advantage until half-time.
Soon after the break, Eastern drew level on their first penalty corner goal of the afternoon. On Tuesday, the Eastern squad earned an astounding 21 penalty corners and were unable to convert in their 2-0 win. A very focused day of working through the corners in practice paid off when Olivia Derr redirected a Katie Maguire smash to even up the match in the 47th minute.
Eastern took the lead just over ten minutes later on another corner play. This time Derr dug a rebound out of traffic and pushed it to Kim Campbell. Last week's PAC Player of the Week and Quintel Wireless-Eastern University Athlete of the week converted the short shot to give the Eagles a 2-1 lead.
Moments later, Kenyon took advantage of an opening in the Eastern backfield and drew level at two on a goal from Lauren Keiling. After a quick timeout, the Eagles came out to take command of the match, but were unable to break the tie.
For the second time in two weeks, Eastern would get to play seven aside for overtime hockey. Unlike the Montclair State game from last week, this one did not last long. Campbell converted her second overtime game-winner of the year just a minute and a half into extra time.
Campbell's second goal of the day also came on a penalty corner. After a solid push out, Stephanie Moyer knocked the ball sideways to her sister Lindsay. As she is supposed to, the younger Moyer cracked a shot toward the back post where Campbell waited with her stick ready for the one-time finish.
The Eagles had a 27-11 advantage in shots and a 15-6 advantage in penalty corners for the day. Kelly Garland made three saves in goals for the win.
Coach Azzarano said of the trip to the Midwest, "This has been a great couple days for the team. We executed very well against a good team and were able to spend quality time together in a really pretty part of the country. We are looking to use this time as a springboard toward the PAC Playoffs."
With the first round bye in the PAC playoffs, The Eastern team know faces an extended period of time off before resuming action with a PAC Semi-final game in a week and a half.
