SPRINGFIELD, Mass. – The Eastern Connecticut State University field hockey team hopes that it's déjà vu all over again after throwing Springfield College for a 5-0 non-conference loss Wednesday afternoon at Stagg Field.
In the opening weeks last year, Eastern (2-2) defeated Springfield (1-3) for the first time after losing the first six matches in the series by a combined score of 24-3, and the Warriors parlayed that early momentum in 2021 into a record 14 wins and, two months later, a first Little East Conference playoff championship.
In its first road match of the year Wednesday, after sandwiching two disappointing losses around a blowout win in the first ten days of the season, everyone got into the act, as nine different players contributing a goal or an assist in a runaway five-goal win over Springfield.
As recently as 2018, the Pride had vanquished Eastern, 6-1, at Rick McCarthy Field and went on to a 12-6 record.
The five goals are the second-most for Eastern in a match in the last 56 games – since an identical 5-0 Little East home win against Salem State University on September 19, 2018. Not since a milestone 5-4 LEC win over Keene State College in 2017 had the Warriors put up a five-spot in the scoring column away from home.
Eastern got the jump Wednesday less than three minutes into action when graduate defender
Bryce Makula (Guilford) scored her third goal of the year off an assist from junior midfielder
Leah Kowalasky (Middlebury) against Springfield freshman goalie Savanna Harvey.
Twice after that first goal, the Warriors strung together two goals in rapid fashion to pull away. First-year forward
Emma Sanson (Thomaston) notched her third goal of the young season with 33 seconds left in the first half on a helper from sophomore midfielder
Liz LaMarco (West Hartford), and Makula made it 3-0 just 35 seconds into the second half on an assist from junior forward
Kaylee Drobish (Wallingford).
Senior goalie
Sarah Gallagher (South Windsor) ceded the net to classmate
Erin Fainer (Thomaston) to start the second half, and after Makula's early second-half goal, senior defender
Grace Mangiameli (Suffield) and first-year forward
Angelina Falleni (Byram, NJ) turned the game into a runaway when they scored their first career goals in a span of just under three minutes in the fourth quarter. Sophomore forward
Brooke Mercier (Washington) was credited with her first assist of the year on Mangiameli's goal and sophomore
Delia Champagne (Richmond, RI) recorded her first career point with an assist on Falleni's marker.
Eastern outshot Springfield, 11-9, but Gallagher (four saves) and Fainer (two) totaled two more saves than Harvey.
With her 15
th career win, Gallagher moved into third place all-time among goalies in that department, one ahead of three-year player Keira Integlia and three behind Jennifer Makwana (Samantha Scavo's 33 victories between 2013 and 2016 lead all goalies).
Rated second in the LEC pre-season poll after defeating host Keene State in last year's LEC playoff final, Eastern visits LEC pre-season favorite Keene Saturday at 1:30 p.m. Keene edged the Warriors by two points in the pre-season poll.
Keene (1-3) lost, 2-1, against visiting Springfield 11 days ago and is coming off Wednesday's 6-0 road loss to No. 12 nationally-ranked Amherst College. Saturday's game will the Owls' LEC opener while the Warriors sustained a 3-1 home loss to the University of Southern Maine Saturday in their LEC opener.
