Stone Leads No. 9 Cards to 5-1 Victory at Ball State

Wednesday, October 3

Muncie, IN

3:00 p.m.

University of Louisville

(9-3)

Ball State

(1-10)

Louisville

Ball State

Photo by: Adam Creech | Louisville Athletics

October 03, 2018 | Field Hockey

Box Score Louisville 5 - Ball State 1

Senior Taylor Stone scored a pair of goals in Louisville's 5-1 win at Ball State

By: Lori Korte

MUNCIE, Ind. – Senior Taylor Stone scored a pair of goals to help lead the ninth-ranked University of Louisville field hockey team to a 5-1 win over Ball State Wednesday afternoon at Briner Sports Stadium.

"When we are disciplined and focused we can play some really nice hockey," said UofL head coach Justine Sowry. "The positive today is that we created an increase in scoring opportunities and we put their defense under a lot of pressure. We look forward to carrying this over into our game this weekend."

Louisville (9-3) used a season-high 24 shots, 11 on goal, to produce its highest scoring output of the 2018 campaign. In addition to Stone's goals, freshman Erica Cooper notched her team-best seventh goal while sophomore Bethany Russ added her sixth score of the season. Sophomore Alli Bitting registered pair of assists and senior Katie Walsh also dished out two feeds to bring her team-high tally to six.

Sophomore Mercedes Pastor put UofL on the scoreboard in the sixth minute of the game when she connected on penalty corner assists from Bitting and Walsh for her third goal of the season.

Midway through the first half, Stone directed a penalty stroke into the cage to give the Cards a 2-0 lead.

Louisville took the lead into halftime after outshooting Ball State 7-1 and holding a 2-1 edge in penalty corners.

UofL ramped up its offense in the second half, firing off 17 shots and earning eight penalty corners while holding Ball State to one shot and did not allow a BSU corner.

Russ notched an unassisted goal to give the Cards a 3-0 lead and mark her sixth goal of the season to temporarily tie Cooper for the team lead. With her goal, Russ has now recorded a point in each of the last six games.

Stone tallied her second goal of the game off of penalty corner assists from Bitting and Walsh to make the score 4-0.

Ball State (1-10) broke through with a goal from Michelle Shampton with under 10 minutes remaining in the contest.

Louisville countered two minutes later when Cooper capitalized on a pass from sophomore Madison Walsh to bring the final score to 5-1.

UofL will return to action Sunday when the Cards play host to Michigan State at 12 p.m. at Trager Stadium. Admission is free.