ST. DAVIDS, Pa.—Eastern University Field Hockey slipped into a three-goal first-half deficit in Wednesday's game against the FDU-Florham Devils that proved to be a hole one goal too deep to climb out of. Eastern's Megan Bolton scored twice, but the Eagles fell by a final count of 3-2.

The Devils sprayed 22 shots at Eastern's cage en route to the Freedom Conference win. Eastern goalie Jennifer O'Neill recorded 11 saves, and FDU goalie Amy Defnet made two saves.

FDU-Florham scored its first goal in the 15th minute, firing a succession of shots after a corner until Kim Davis put home her 10th goal of the season. The Devils scored again at the end of 18th minute, this time scoring in the open field. Just two-and-a-half minutes later, the Devils stretched their lead to 3-0 after navigating down the right sideline and crossing the ball in front of the net.

The Eagles refused to give in after falling behind 3-0 and made a dent in the Devils lead in the 25th minute. Bolton received an inserted corner from Gina Miller and blasted a shot into the cage from just inside the circle. Bolton scored again in the beginning of the second half, taking another slapshot off a corner in the 38th minute that deflected off at least one FDU defender and into the cage.

Eastern's defense came up strong in the final 32 minutes of the game as they stopped nine FDU penalty corners and kept the Devils from finding the cage again the rest of the game. The Eagles offense, however, couldn't claim a third goal in the remainder of the game and fell to 7-9 overall and 2-3 in the Freedom Conference. The Devils improved to 10-6 (4-1 Freedom).

Eastern has two remaining conference contests, both on the road and both against opponents at the bottom of the conference. The Eagles need to win out to have a shot at making the conference playoffs. Eastern travels to Manhattanville on Saturday for a 1 p.m. start.

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