Morgan Fleetwood and company were too much for the Louisville Friday afternoon in Bloomington. After losing an exhibition match 3-0 in Louisville on August 17th, Coach Robertson and her girls proved today that they are a resilient group.
Fleetwood began by scoring in the third minute off of a penalty corner, from Mariella Grote and Danielle McNally, and it didn’t seem like it would stop there. Louisville rebounded and got a penalty corner opportunity of their own in the seventh minute, but to no avail. The Hoosiers followed that with a pair of diving efforts which just missed wide. Just when it seemed that Indiana would head to half-time up 1-0, Louisville was awarded a penalty corner and capitalized. Becca Maddock was able to score with the assist coming from Victoria Stratton. At half, Indiana had the shooting advantage six to three, but the goalkeeping by Erin Conrad, of the Cardinals, was tough to get by as she had four saves.
In the first five minutes of the second half, momentum appeared to be shifting back to Indiana as they had a shot deflected just to the left of the goal followed by a penalty corner. The Cardinals weathered the storm and had the benefit of a questionable call that gave them a penalty corner in the 47th minute. The penalty resulted in an unassisted diving goal by Erin Schneidtmiller. In the 53rd minute another penalty corner was given to Louisville, and ironically, this is when the momentum really shifted to the Hoosiers. A miss-hit on the pass from the penalty corner appeared to throw the Cardinals off from there on out. A brilliant pass by Fleetwood off of a penalty corner in the 55th minute set herself up for a cross, but she missed just wide. A minute later, a penalty corner for Indiana led to another Fleetwood shot which was saved beautifully by the Cardinal keeper Conrad. Two more penalty corners led to Fleetwood hitting the right inside corner of the post and Sophomore Audra Heilman getting a couple shots, but no goals. Trailing 2-1, Indiana was running out of time to tie the game when Louisville got a break away and looked like they were going to put the game out of reach, but Haley Jurich did not capitalize on a terrific opportunity when she hit the outside of the post. No more than a minute later, Indiana tied it up. The play started when Amanda Bennison led Grote perfectly down the sideline and Grote got her second assist, this time to Nicole Volgraf. When Louisville couldn’t capitalize on two penalty corners in the final few minutes, the teams headed to overtime.
The sudden death, “golden goal”, came just one minute into overtime. A penalty corner for Indiana resulted in a solid drive by Fleetwood into the cage for her second goal of the day and the win. Heilman got her first assist of the day to go along with her three shot attempts.
Fleetwood and Volgraf did the scoring, but the Hoosiers also played stout defense all afternoon. Recent B1G Freshman Player of the Week, Sydney Supica, and Louisville native, Hannah Boyer, played menacing defense stopping numerous Cardinal attacks throughout the game.
IU Field Hockey is in action again on Sunday at 1pm against the Ohio Bobcats here in Bloomington.
Written By: Christopher Vadney
