By Alex Kurtz, Sports Editor
The Susquehanna field hockey team dropped both games with this week, the first at home versus conference-foe Catholic 4-1, and the second on the road against non-conference foe Albright 4-0.
The first game was on Saturday, Sept. 23 when the River Hawks traveled to Catholic to play their second conference game of the season.
Scoring started early in the game for the Cardinals, when Rachel Day scored just 24 seconds into the first period to give Catholic a 1-0 lead.
Freshman Maddie Taylor scored the first and only goal for the River Hawks in the 15th min- ute when she took a pass from junior Stephanie Sachs to tie the game 1-1.
Day added another goal for the Cardinals in the 33rd minute to give Catholic a 2-1 lead going into the half.
The Susquehanna defense was able to crackdown on the Cardinals or a short stretch but eventually broke to give up two goals in two minutes to make the final 4-1.
Taylor led the River Hawks in shots on the day with four.
Catholic dominated the game offensively with 20 total shots with 14 shots being on goal, while Susquehanna only managed to record 10 shots overall.
On Wednesday, Sept. 27 the team went on the road for their second game of the week at Albright for a non-conference game. The River Hawks were shutout 4-0.
Susquehanna once again let up an early goal, this time right before the two-minute mark off of a corner play.
Bailey Lehman scored her second goal of the season off of an assist from Tracy Snyder to give Albright a quick 1-0.
In the 23rd minute, Albright’s Cassidy Barrow punched in her first goal of the season off of a shot from the top circle to extend the lead to 2-0.
Scoring would remain quiet for the remaining part of the first half and the teams would end the half with a 2-0 Albright lead.
Albright’s Amanda Long and Snyder then responded by both scoring a goal just two minutes apart. Long would take a shot that would bounce off a River Hawk defender to push the score to 3-0 and Snyder would make the score 4-0 off of a goal from a penalty corner opportunity.
Senior mid-fielder Cayla Spatz led Susquehanna in shots on the day with five, and sophomore Emily DiGaetano had seven saves on the day.
This was the second straight game that Susquehanna’s opponent had more shots on goal than the River Hawks had in total.
Susquehanna will look to pick up their first conference win of the season when they take on Goucher at home on Saturday, Sept. 30. Game time for the River Hawks is 1 p.m.