Legendary football coach Paul "Bear" Bryant made famous the quotation, "Offense wins games. Defense wins championships." The Eastern University field hockey team used their defense to jump start their offense as they earned their second consecutive Freedom Conference Championship with a 2-0 win over King's on Saturday afternoon.
With the Freedom Conference Championship, the Eagles earn an automatic bid into the 2009 NCAA Division III National Tournament. Eastern advanced to the "Sweet 16" in 2008.
Eastern entered this afternoon's Championship leading the Freedom Conference in penalty corners per game with 15.05 and were second in shots per game with 19.4, but they struggled to get their offense going through the first half. The visiting Monarchs seemed to match them shot for shot and penalty corner for penalty corner. By the end of the period, the top-seeded Eagles held a 7-4 advantage in shots and a 7-3 edge in penalty corners, but the contest remained tied after 35 minutes of play.
"Our connections were not there," remarked head coach Camrin Azzarano. "We struggled to find each other's sticks in the first half. The ladies stayed the course though. We tightened the connections up after half-time and were able to find the cage."
The momentum clearly shifted in favor of the Eagles less than a minute before the end of the first half. After a strong offensive push by Eastern, the Monarch's Jenera Quinones broke through the Eagles' midfield and seemed destined for a breakaway goal. Leslie Messick came up and across the field from her sweeper position to block Quinones' attack.
"This was definitely a team effort," praised Messick, who earned Championship Most Valuable Player Award. "We had a hard time getting around their defensive six on corners in the first half. We knew that defensively we needed to step up to push the momentum in our favor and give our offense a chance to score."
The Eagles finally found the goal that would be the difference with just twelve minutes remaining. Freshman Kelby Bolton broke the scoreless deadlock when she buried a rebound on a penalty corner. Yvonne Herbster started the attack after receiving the insert from Sarah Garber. The sophomore standout, and last year's tournament MVP ripped a shot from the top of the circle. King's goalie Erin McGinley made the initial save, but Bolton rushed the ball from the left side and fired it into the back of the cage for her fourth goal of 2009.
Five minutes later, another Eastern freshman put the game out of reach. Brittany Moyer, a high school teammate of Bolton's at Christopher Dock, scored the important insurance goal on a nice cross from Elya Troup. The two goals would be all the Eagles would need as Messick and the rest of the Eastern defense held King's to just three shots and no penalty corners in the second half.
Laura Ressler picked up four saves in goal on her way to her sixth shutout of the season.
"The defense was phenomenal," added Azzarano. "Messick stepped up huge for us a few times to stop breakaways. We didn't get discouraged and we kept right at it."
With this afternoon's win, the Eagles advance to the NCAA Division III National Tournament which begins on Wednesday. Eastern made it to the Sweet 16 in 2008 and will look to improve on that in 2009.
"Last year we weren't expected to go as far as we did in the NCAA Tournament," explained Messick. "This year however, we are expecting to be successful. We are going to use this game as motivation."
Game times and opponents for the 2009 NCAA Division III National Field Hockey Tournament are still to be determined. The bracket for the tournament should be released at approximately 9:00 am on Monday.
