By Emma Bynes
@emma_bynes4
Despite their hot start to the season, Springfield College field hockey has cooled down. They’ve suffered close losses to Western New England and WPI in the last week, despite a dominant 8-0 win against Hartford. Springfield desperately needed a NEWMAC win over MIT this afternoon to stronghold their conference standings, but narrowly fell 3-2 in an overtime thriller.
The Pride had suffered five straight loses to the Engineers going back to 2019. Going into this game, Springfield and head coach Mia Olsen were prepared for a tough battle. Neither team secured possession or an advantage to start the game off on a positive note early.
Possession went back and forth between Springfield and MIT with no team having a clear chance to score until the Engineers earned a penalty corner with three minutes remaining in the first. First-year goalie Samantha Orcutt made a diving attempt at the ball, but MIT’s Jane Tortorella shot went wide left. Shortly afterwards Rachel Simkewicz and Hailey Gaydos, Springfield’s leading scoring tandem, had an opportunity of their own but could not squeeze the ball past the Engineer’s goalie. On the ensuing play Simekewicz earned a green card and had to sit out both the end of the first and start of the second periods.
MIT got off to a quick start in the second, taking three shots within the first five minutes — promptly being stopped with one save by Orcutt and two defensive stands from the Pride. Junior Kaelin Cerasuolo was certainly a key to the Pride’s defensive effort today. Springfield earned its first corner of the game with seven minutes left until the second half, a stark contrast to their high powered offense this season. Nicolette Morlock fired in a ball to first-year Clare Moore, but the ball got deflected by the Engineer goalie. The Pride maintained possession of the ball — the home team had about four different chances to grab a lead before the half with 30 seconds left. However another missed opportunity between Simkewicz and Gaydos kept the score even going into halftime.
Mistakes by MIT led to Audrey Hayes securing an isolation next to the goal in the very start of the third quarter, but MIT’s goalie once again made fantastic saves to stifle the Pride. The Engineers earned a corner of their own early on in the second half — Orcutt deflected this ball out to the left side of the field for another save. After Springfield drove the ball downfield, Simkewicz was left all alone near the goal but made a crucial mistake to hand possession back to MIT.
The Engineers tried to pass the ball between each other in their own half, but out of nowhere Hailey Gaydos jumped the passing lane and skipped the ball past MIT’s goalie to finally put the Pride ahead heading into the fourth quarter.
“Their goalie is very, very talented,” Olsen said. “Us scoring against her is a good thing. We have the power as a team to score all around.”
Less than a minute into the fourth, the ball got tied up between multiple different players on both teams. The play resulted in a penalty shot for the Pride. Morlock took the shot for Springfield and lofted the ball past MIT’s goalie to give Springfield some crucial insurance.
“It’s really special when we work as a team,” Morlock said. “I’m the one who took the stroke, but I wasn’t the one who earned it. That’s all on our forwards. It’s completely a team effort every single time”
MIT and Springfield traded corners with no score on either play — and with just four minutes to play a win was in reach for the Pride. MIT earned another penalty corner and finally capitalized, as Bailey McIntyre fired the ball past Orcutt to pull the Engineers within one.
If one could believe it, the following play was the exact same. McIntyre scored again to tie the game with just three minutes remaining and overtime was looming.
The overtime period started in a mirror image to the game. Neither team looked confident enough to pull away and win the game within the next ten minutes.
The Engineers earned their ninth corner of the game with seven minutes left in the period and the Pride defensive unit stood strong, but lapsed to give another corner to MIT less than 20 seconds later. It seemed like Orcutt learned from the last two MIT scores, and this time she got the better of McIntyre to make the save. Springfield failed to get the ball out cleanly and gave the ball to MIT — where they earned another two corners within another 20 seconds. Orcutt made two more beautiful saves to keep the Pride from falling behind halfway through the extra time. Despite one more diving attempt, Orcutt gave up the game-winning goal to Janie Tomas.
“We learn something from every game and then we move on,” Olsen said. “I think it just goes to show how our conference is and that any team can win on any given day.”
The Pride fell to a record of 6-5 after their 5-1 start to the season, and gave up crucial standing in the NEWMAC. Springfield travels to Smith College next Tuesday before returning to Stagg Field against Wellesley in the heat of their NEWMAC season Saturday, October 11.
Photo by Emma Bynes/The Student