FRAMINGHAM, Mass. – The Framingham State University field hockey team needed only three minutes to turn a certain loss into a dramatic win with a 3-2 overtime victory over Eastern Connecticut State University Thursday night at Maple Street Field.
Eastern (2-4-1) erased an early 1-0 deficit when it got goals from first-year players
Betsy Davis (
Enfield) and
Grace Barlage (Guilford) in the middle two periods and carried a one-goal lead into the final two minutes of regulation. With 1:53 left, Framingham (3-3) forced overtime on freshman Ashley Malmquist's second goal of the year, and won it just 71 seconds into overtime on Isabella Kondi's third goal of the year off an assist from Brandi Core.
Kondi's winning goal came just moments after she had opened overtime by hitting the post off a penalty corner.
Eastern was coming off a 5-2 win at Nichols College Tuesday night. The win is the third straight for Framingham, which had lost its first three.
With Eastern leading 2-1 in the fourth quarter and six minutes remaining, sophomore
Emma Sanson (Thomaston) nearly sealed the win, but her shot was kept out of the cage by defender Cori Lawson.
Sophomore goalie
Hannah Jalowiec (Cheshire) made half of her game total of eight saves in the second quarter when Davis netted her second goal (in two games) midway through the quarter off sophomore
Angelina Falleni's (Byram, NJ) penalty corner and an assist from Barlage, who followed with her team-leading fourth goal of the year with just over three minutes gone off another penalty corner by Falleni that lifted the Warriors into their only lead, 2-1. The Warriors had additional opportunities to pad their lead but couldn't despite collecting seven penalty corners in the quarter.
That lead stood up for 25 minutes until Malmquist forced overtime on an assist from Kondi, who went on to win the game early in overtime off an assist from Brandi Core, who had given the Rams a 1-0 lead midway through the first quarter with her third goal of the year.
It marked only the second time in the last 13 matches between the teams that the loser was not shut out. The loss to Framingham is the second in as many years after the Warriors had won nine straight in the series dating back to 2012. The contest was the first non-conference one in the 23-game series. Until this year, Framingham had been an affiliated member of the Little East Conference.
Eastern plays its third (road) match in five days when it visits RPI Saturday at 2 p.m.
