Miami Ohio University Athletics
Miami University
University of Richmond
Big Second Half Leads to 6-1 RedHawk Win
8/31/2008 12:00:00 AM | Field Hockey
Aug. 31, 2008
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OXFORD, Ohio - With a six-goal outburst spanning just 25 minutes, the Miami University field hockey team earned its second win in as many games, downing the University of Richmond, 6-1, in the final day of the Miami Kick-off Classic in Oxford.
The two winners of the previous day's games fought to a scoreless stalemate in the first half, with Miami getting several chances but coming up empty. Just four minutes into the second half, the offensive output picked up for the hosts.
"It wasn't any change in strategy. It was our team trying to stay the course and let the game come into their hands," said fifth-year Miami head coach Jill Reeve. "We were getting some chances in the first half. But, I think their ability to stick with the game and allow it to come to them was really mature and I was impressed by that."
For the second day in a row, five RedHawks scored goals, with freshman forward Jackie Nguyen tallying two. Also for the second day in a row, freshman goalkeeper Abbey Huck was impressive in goal, stopping five Richmond shots before surrendering her first career goal in her 137th minute of play in cage.
Junior forward Mary Hull, who has worked her way back onto the field after a season-ending injury in the first game of 2007, scored the game's first goal off an assist from freshman Amanda Seeley.
"Amanda Seeley was coming down the right side," Hull recounted. "I was in front of the defender that came up on her. She passed the ball through the defender's legs. I turned around and shot it through the goalie's legs."
Seeley then scored a goal of her own, the first of her collegiate career, when she beat the keeper off a cross from senior Jessica Reading. Fellow senior Elizabeth Gilroy got control of the ball in the circle, moved to create space, and scored to make the score 3-0 with 20 minutes remaining.
As has become custom very early in the Miami season, Gilroy then assisted on the next goal, when she found Teja Kammler for the senior's second goal of the year on a breakaway in the 55th minute.
Nguyen netted both of her goals in the 65th and 66th minute respectively on two distinctly different plays.
"I got a really good pass in the corner and I just did a little back hit into the corner post," Nguyen said of her first goal.
The freshman added that on her second goal, "Courtney Fretz hit it out to me and I just took the shot from the top of the circle."
UR's Katelin Peterson beat Huck for the freshman's first goal allowed in two games with just three minutes to play.
The Redhawks, now 2-0, will travel to Evanston, Ill. For Friday and Saturday games against host Northwestern Wildcats and Sacred Heart on Sept. 5 and 6, respectively.
"We have a few things to clean up," Reeve stated when asked about week two for the Miami RedHawks. "We are a little bit aggressive in our press. We need to be able to drop out of that as well when things are kind of coming apart. But, I feel like our basics are where they should be at this point."
In the final game of the Miami Kick-off Classic, Ball State defeated Davidson 2-0.
