By Emma Bynes
@Emma_bynes4
Springfield College’s Nicolette Morlock scored her second collegiate goal Saturday afternoon in the Pride’s game against Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
The Pride fell to WPI 5-2 in the match after playing into a 3-0 deficit early in the game. Two minutes in, the Engineers’ Abbey Powers scored her first goal of the season to silence the crowd quickly.
Just over a minute later, WPI pushed a two-on-one situation to score again, this time the goal coming from Ari Lang. Quickly after, with nine minutes remaining in the first period, WPI scored for the third time, digging a deep, early hole for the Pride to try to climb out of.
It looked like there was no coming back for the Pride. However, they quickly broke the ice two minutes into the second period, as graduate student Emma McLaughlin lofted the ball past WPI goalie Ella Moreau for her first goal of the year, cutting the gap to two goals.
Springfield pushed the ball downfield after a failed Engineers penalty corner, but Anna Beck was met by a wall of WPI defenders, sending her hard into the turf on Stagg Field. On the ensuing penalty shot, taken by junior Morlock, she would take advantage – scoring her first goal of the season and the second of her collegiate career to shrink the deficit to just one.
“Each of our goals is a team effort every single time so it’s nice to get the individual success, but I would not be here without every single one of my teammates,” Morlock said. “It’s really nice to score after being moved to defense after my first collegiate goal two years ago.”
Almost immediately afterwards, WPI had another penalty corner and pushed their lead back 4-2 going into the half.
Starting the third quarter, Springfield began to control time of possession and the game seemed more evenly matched. A good Morlock takeaway with 6 minutes left in the period would lead to no score, unfortunately. The defense would look much stronger, and the third period would remain scoreless-leaving the Pride down 2 with 15 minutes remaining.
Springfield earned a penalty corner to start off the fourth, and Hailey Gaydos made a diving effort to save the ball to no avail. Within the first five minutes of the quarter, WPI earned four penalty corners, but goalie Kaitlyn Parent made great saves, aided by her defense and Springfield made stops on all of them. With just over six minutes left in the game, Gaydos had a great one-on-one opportunity, but could not capitalize as the ball carried past her outstretched stick, out of play.
The Pride earned another penalty corner with just under three minutes left, but Anna Beck was unable to capitalize. The Engineers scored their final insurance goal when Lauren Meinhold rocketed a shot past Parent to put WPI up 5-2 with 58 seconds left in the game.
Ultimately, the Pride left the game with a positive feeling, knowing that they battled from down 3-2. “I don’t know if I’ve ever seen someone come back from a 3-0, especially in the first six minutes,” Pride head coach Mia Olsen said. “So to pull it to 3-2, was really good and showed our resiliency,”.
Springfield is now on a six-game skid in the toughest stretch of their schedule, and they continue NEWMAC play against Mount Holyoke on Tuesday, Oct. 8.
Photo courtesy of Springfield College Athletics