EWING – In one of the most evenly ranked matchups that there can be between two teams, TCNJ and Salisbury both showed exactly how to live up to the hype of a big game.
Both teams entered Saturday’s game, which ended in a 2-1 Salisbury win in overtime, ranked in the top five of the National Field Hockey Coaches Association poll and battled hard until the final buzzer sounded.
Both teams have found themselves in the top-10 in that poll for the entire season and Saturday night proved why. On paper and statistically speaking these two teams were matched up nicely. The strong offense of TCNJ going against the stout backline of Salisbury made for a low scoring, back and forth affair that needed more than just 70 minutes of regulation to crown a winner.
To compare these two teams, the first place to look is at the record. Entering the game, both teams had just one fault to show for and oddly enough, those losses were at the hands of the same team.
That team was none other than the number one ranked team in the nation, the Messiah Falcons. The reigning National Champions handed both Salisbury and TCNJ their first losses of the season both by a final score of 2-1.
Sound familiar?
Well tonight was a tail of the same story for the Lions.
For the second consecutive game, the Lions managed to score just one goal on their home turf. In each of the last two contests, the lone goal scorer has been the junior defender, Sidney Padilla.
Padilla headlines the backline who stands in front of the goalkeeper Christina Fabiano, who came into Saturday after recording her first shutout of the season, held the Seagulls scoreless through the first 67 plus minutes of the game. Before surrendering the two goals, Fabiano had not let up a goal in her previous four halves of play spanning over the last week.
The stats between these two teams told the story for how the night could go. Both teams were among the leaders in the nation in respective categories. One stat that both teams ranked in the top fifteen nationally was corners taken per game as each team averages over twelve per game.
With different strengths between the two teams, each side’s strength cancelled out the other. For Salisbury, the defense is what has led them to where they are tonight. The veteran presence of Tressie Windsor continued to impress the entire country as she allowed just her fourth goal of the season through the first seven games.
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