Woods' Hat Trick Leads No. 9 Field Hockey to 5-1 Win Over Kent State

Sunday, September 3

Columbus, OH

12:00 PM

University of Louisville

(3-1)

Kent State

(1-3)

Louisville

Kent State

Woods' Hat Trick Leads No. 9 Field Hockey to 5-1 Win Over Kent State

September 03, 2017 | Field Hockey

Box Score Louisville 5 - Kent State 1 (PDF)Justine Sowry Post Game Interview

Senior Nicole Woods registers her first career hat trick

By: Lori Korte

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Senior Nicole Woods delivered her first career hat trick to help lead the ninth-ranked University of Louisville field hockey team to a 5-1 win over Kent State Sunday afternoon at Ohio State's Varsity Buckeye Field.

"We certainly took a hard look at our game against Ohio State," said UofL head coach Justine Sowry. "We had many lessons that were learned and we watched a lot of video. What is special about Louisville field hockey is that we are resilient and we bounce back. We took those lessons and we put them into play today… The defensive effort was much better and some of our attacking play was excellent. It was complete teamwork and we were a little more purposeful and intentional in the circle, so an improved effort."

The Cards (3-1) wasted little time getting on the scoreboard after earning a penalty corner in the third minute of the game. Senior co-captain Abby Grimes' (St. Louis, Mo.) initial shot was blocked by a Kent State defender, but Woods was there for the rebound for her first goal of the season.

Seven minutes later, Woods struck again on another corner opportunity. This time, the senior co-captain from Beverly, Mass., redirected Grimes' shot to push the Cards ahead 2-0.

The Louisville attack continued with two more goals in a five-minute span. Marigrace Ragsdale (St. Louis, Mo.) joined her fellow senior co-captains on the scoresheet after connecting on a feed from sophomore Minout Mink (Haaksbergen, The Netherlands).

Woods notched her third goal in the18^th minute of the game when she received a pass from freshman Sarah Sabaluski (Lehman, Pa.) and sent a reverse shot past Kent State goalkeeper Azure Fernsler to make the score 4-0.

Louisville took the 4-0 lead into halftime after outshooting the Golden Flashes 18-3 and holding an 8-2 advantage in corners.

The teams played through 13 scoreless minutes in the second half before Mink capped the scoring for the Cardinals on another penalty corner. Junior Taylor Stone (Herndon, Va.) and freshman Meghan Schneider (San Diego, Calif.) combined to assist Mink's third goal of the season.

The Golden Flashes (1-3) got on the scoreboard with under nine minutes left in the game when Ines Delpech used penalty corner assists from Clara Rodriguez Seto and Jessica Nesbitt for the 5-1 final.

In the game, Louisville outshot Kent State 25-6 and held an 11-4 edge in penalty corners.

Sophomore Hollyn Barr (Lancaster, Pa.) collected one save in her third win of the season. Fernsler (1-3) had three stops and Kylie LeBlanc recorded eight saves for Kent State.

The Cardinals will continue their six-game road swing with a trip to College Park, Md., where they will take on a pair of top 25 opponents starting with No. 21 American on Sept. 8 and No. 6 Maryland on Sept. 10.