No. 15 Field Hockey Falls Short at No. 14 Northwestern

Tuesday, September 19

Evanston, IL

4:00 PM

University of Louisville

(4-4)

Northwestern

(6-3)

Louisville

Northwestern

No. 15 Field Hockey Falls Short at No. 14 Northwestern

September 19, 2017 | Field Hockey

Box Score Northwestern 2 - Louisville 0 (PDF)

Cards wrap up a six-game road stretch with a 2-0 loss at No. 14 Northwestern

By: Lori Korte

The No. 15 University of Louisville field hockey team fell 2-0 to No. 14 Northwestern Tuesday afternoon at Northwestern's Lakeside Field.

Tuesday's game ended a six-game road stretch which included four teams ranked in the top 20. The Cardinals (4-4) will return to Trager Stadium to face No. 11 Wake Forest in an ACC contest Friday at 6 p.m. UofL will continue its string top-20 opponent matchups when No. 13 James Madison visits Louisville Sunday at 12 p.m.

"We played much better hockey today between the 25's, finding each other and connecting better passes," said UofL head coach Justine Sowry. "We let ourselves down in both the defensive circle and attacking circle. We have had a challenging road schedule the last six games and we will be excited to get back home so we can get back to business of continual improvement. It's a long season with much hockey still to be played."

The Cards attacked early in the game, firing off four shots and earning three corners in first 10 minutes of the half, but Northwestern (6-3) struck in the 25^th minute when Kirsten Mansfield deflected Puck Pentenga's penalty corner shot to give the Wildcats a 1-0 lead.

The score stood at 1-0 at halftime after Northwestern outshot Louisville 9-7 and each team tallied four corners in the first half.

In the second half, the Cardinals' defense withstood a flurry of four Northwestern corners in a three-minute span before Mansfield and Puck combined on another corner to push the Wildcats ahead 2-0 at the 42:50 mark in the contest.

In the game, Northwestern outshot Louisville 18-11 and held a 12-5 advantage in corners, including eight in the second half.

Junior Ayeisha McFerran (0-3) collected six saves in the game while senior Marigrace Ragsdale paced the Cardinals' offense with five shots, three of them on goal.
Northwestern's Annie Kalfas registered four stops to keep the Cards off of the scoreboard.