By Joyce Novacek

Writer

The field hockey team faced tough competition this past weekend, falling to Lafayette 4-2 on the road on Saturday and losing to Columbia 3-2 at home on Sunday. In both games, the Bison fell behind early, and were unable to fully recover.

On Saturday, the Bison went into halftime down two goals to the Lafayette Leopards. Just two minutes into the second half, Tayler Siegrist ’13 sparked the Bison offense, scoring on a penalty corner and bringing the Bison within one goal of the Leopards. Corinne Raczek ’11 assisted Siegrist’s goal.

The Orange and Blue were never able to tie the game since Maria Machalick of Lafayette scored the Leopards’ third goal of the game before Katie Durkin ’13 scored the Bison’s second.

Goaltender Sarah Zargarpour ’12 made four saves but also allowed four goals.

“The team’s focus going into this weekend of competition was that we had to win Saturday’s game against Lafayette if we wanted to have a chance at being number one in the league and hosting the Patriot League tournament, which was one of our season goals. After the Lafayette game on Saturday, we were very frustrated because we knew that we could have beaten them, but we failed in doing so,” Siegrist said.

Against Columbia, the Bison were again down at halftime but only by a 1-0 deficit. The Orange and Blue tied the score when Mallory Smith ’12 made a clean pass to Kelly Bruvik ’11 who capitalized on a one-on-one opportunity by scoring the first Bison goal of the day.

The Lions responded to the Bison goal by scoring two goals of their own, putting the Bison down 3-1.

On the last play, Morgan Kauffman ’11 scored a goal off of Siegrist’s assist, but it was a little too late.

After these two games, Bruvik and Kauffman are tied for the most goals scored this season with six apiece.

“We certainly had a rough weekend and weren’t able to play the quality of hockey we are capable of playing. I think our frustrations from this past weekend will push us to have a great week of practice and hopefully have a better turnout against Lehigh,” Christine Weiss ’11 said.

The Bison continue their home stand on Saturday when they face Lehigh at 1 p.m. in a Patriot League match-up. On Tuesday, they travel to University Park, Pa. for a non-conference game against Penn State at 7 p.m.