Tigers Fall At Ohio Wesleyan In Overtime
An important North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC) field hockey game between two teams with title aspirations went the way of the home team Saturday as host Ohio Wesleyan defeated Wittenberg 4-3 in overtime.
DELAWARE, Ohio - An important North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC) field hockey game between two teams with title aspirations went the way of the home team Saturday as host Ohio Wesleyan defeated Wittenberg 4-3 in overtime.
The loss dropped the Tigers to 6-5 overall and 3-3 in the NCAC, while OWU picked up its second win over Wittenberg this season to improve to 7-4 overall and 4-3 in the conference. The top four teams in the final NCAC standings advance to the conference tournament, and the Tigers and Bishops are among a cluster of teams in contention for the postseason.
Wittenberg got off to a good start with a goal by freshman Boo Vernon (Lake Bluff, Ill./Cushing Academy) less than six minutes into the game, but Ohio Wesleyan started a game-long trend by answering with a goal at the 17:50 mark of the first half. The Tigers took a 2-1 lead into the halftime locker room on Vernon's second goal, which was assisted by senior midfielder Alison Voigt (Louisville, Ky./DuPont Manual).
After OWU evened the score 17 minutes into the second half, senior forward Caroline Mason (New Canaan, Conn./New Canaan) gave the Tigers the lead again off a feed from Vernon. From that point, however, it was all OWU as the Bishops scored with just 1:55 left in the game and then won it with a sudden-death overtime tally with just five seconds left on the clock.
For the game, Wittenberg outshot the host team 2013, including a whopping 8-2 margin in the overtime session. The Tigers had a 6-3 edge in penalty corner opportunities, but the Ohio Wesleyan goaltender finished with nine saves and two Bishops field players recorded defensive saves.