EWING – The College of New Jersey Field Hockey team dropped their second game of the season tonight in a tough and hard fought 2-1, overtime loss against the Salisbury University Seagulls. The loss dropped the Lions to 4-2 on the season, and the Seagulls improved their season count to 6-1.
The deciding goal came just two minutes and three seconds into the overtime period. Off a shot rebound, Arielle Johnston was there to clean up the mess for the Seagulls, finding the back of the cage for the walk-off styled victory.
TCNJ players and coaches refused to be interviewed for the second-straight game, both losses.
In a battle of top five ranked teams nationally, goals were hard to come by on Saturday night at Lions Stadium. Through 67 minutes, the contest remained scoreless.
The best chance of the second half came with 7:30 remaining as Salisbury’s Lexi Butler ripped a shot at the goal that was blocked by TCNJ’s Elizabeth Morrison. The ball trickled its way back to Butler’s stick and she fired again, this time it was a diving Christina Fabiano making a stick save to keep the Seagulls off the board for the time being.
With time winding down, both offenses began their final attacks on offense to try and scratch out a win. After multiple shots off the post and key saves from the Lions, with just under three minutes remaining in regulation, Salisbury opened the scoring floodgates.
On the 13th corner of the night for the Seagulls, the ball was inserted by Natalie Wilkinson to Arielle Johnston who made a step back move before sending the ball towards the net where Emma Vicchio deflected the ball through her own legs to find the back of the cage for her first goal of the season.
It didn’t take long for the Lion’s offense to respond with its first goal of the night as just one minute and thirty three seconds later, Cayla Andrews found Sidney Padilla at the top of the circle and Padilla let it fly, finding the back of the cage to even out the score at 1-1 with just a minute and twenty one seconds remaining in regulation.
The third-ranked Lions welcomed the Seagulls of Salisbury University, who came into the contest ranked fourth in the country, both of which are according to the National Field Hockey Coaches Association (NHFCA).
Two very different teams coming into this contest, the Lions entered Saturday ranked as the nation’s sixth best scoring offense in the country. On the opposite side, Salisbury has allowed just 0.5 goals per game, which is good enough for fourth-best in the country behind senior goalkeeper Tressie Windsor.
Despite the loss, the defense was strong the entire game for the Lions. Fabiano, TCNJ’s senir goalkeeper, was coming off her first shutout of the season and tallied a total of nine saves throughout the game while facing 22 shots from the Seagulls’ offense.
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