Central Michigan University Athletics
CMU Field Hockey Heads To Northwestern
9/2/2003 12:00:00 AM | Field Hockey
Sept. 2, 2003
MOUNT PLEASANT - The Central Michigan University field hockey team (0-1; 0-0 Mid-American Conference) continues its non-conference schedule this week as it travels to Northwestern University. The match is set to take place on Sunday, September 7, at 1 p.m.
CMU enters the contest looking for its first victory of the season after falling to Indiana in its first match of the season, 1-0. CMU's game this weekend is the second in a seven-match road trip to start the season for the Chippewas. Northwestern is one of five Big Ten teams that CMU will face this season. Along with Indiana, the Chippewas also will battle Michigan and Iowa at home, and Michigan State in East Lansing.
SCOUTING THE WILDCATS - Northwestern enters this weekend's contest against the Chippewas with a 1-1 record. The Wildcats split a pair of games during a road trip to New Hampshire over the holiday weekend. They beat Boston College in a neutral site game on Saturday, 3-2, and fell to host New Hampshire on Monday, 2-1.
Northwestern is a young team with only three seniors and two juniors on its squad. Offensively, junior Candice Cooper is the top returnee with 19 points last season. Last weekend, Cooper had a goal and an assist in the Wildcats victory over Boston College.
The starting goalkeeper for Northwestern is freshman Sherri-Anne Nyberg. Nyberg had 19 saves over the weekend, including a 15-save performance in the victory over Boston College. Northwestern is coached by Marisa Didio, who has already announced that she is stepping down as head coach at the end of the season.
CMU is 2-5 all-time versus Northwestern. The Chippewas notched its second victory of the series last season with a 3-0 win at Kelly/Shorts Stadium.
FREESE ON WILDCATS - "Northwestern is a team that is similar to Indiana because they both play great defense. It again will be a challenge to score goals. We need to work on getting the ball up the field quicker and getting more fastbreak opportunities.
"Our defense needs to work on coming up with the ball sooner, so when we do gain possession of the ball, we don't need to go 80 or 90 yards to score. We need to start getting possession around the 50-yard line so it is easier to get the ball into the opponent's end. The goal is to improve every game along with maintaining the good things we have done in the previous game."
INDIANA RECAP - CMU fell to Indiana in its season-opening contest last weekend, 1-0.
The lone goal of the contest was scored by Indiana's Kayla Bashore at 47:22 of the contest. Notching assists on the goal were Lydia Schrott and Mallory Reabold.
Leading the CMU offense was Kristy Reed with four shots, three of those being on goal. CMU goalkeeper Laura Plese made three saves in the match while allowing only the single score.
FREESE ON THE INDIANA GAME - "Indiana was a tough match-up for us. I thought our defense did some good things and our offense had some chances to score that we could not capitalize on. Laura Plese did an excellent job for us in her first career start. She didn't seem nervous at all and played with a lot of poise.
"It was a game that we could have won, but we just did not play well enough offensively to get the victory. We need to be quicker, both with the defense gaining possession of the ball and with our passing in the offensive zone."
