Dartmouth women's field hockey finally competed in a contest not decided by one goal as the Big Green swept past Bryant with a more-than-comfortable 7-1 margin on Wednesday afternoon in Hanover. Kelly Hood '12 led the team offensively, scoring three of the Big Green's seven goals.
"On one hand, we scored seven goals, and on the other hand, we allowed them to score on us, and we still are struggling with the problem of breakaways on the other team," McCormick said Wednesday. "While we did a lot of really good things, we also have some things that we weren't too happy about."
The Big Green (4-9, 2-2 Ivy) started off the game with a bang, putting up three goals in the first 15 minutes of play.
Rebecca Sobel '11 put in the first goal of the day unassisted just over a minute and a half into the game. She was followed roughly a minute later by Hood, who netted a goal from the center of the circle on an assist from co-captain Ashley Hines '09.
The strong Dartmouth offensive effort continued when freshman mid-fielder Katherine Cobb '12 scored her first collegiate goal unassisted with 13:31 elapsed in the first half.
After the single goal by the Bulldogs (1-14, 0-0 Northeast), Dartmouth put in two more goals to end the half with a formidable 5-1 lead. Hood began the run off another helper from Hines, while the second tally came from Kelly McHenry '11 off an assist from Virginia Peisch '11.
The assist is Peisch's 11th of the season, putting her within three of the Dartmouth single-season record.
While Meghan Everett '12 did not put up any points, McCormick was particularly impressed by her level of play against the Bulldogs.
"She was hustling to every ball," McCormick said. "No matter where she was and what the situation was, she was hustling. She always has intensity and pressure."
Despite Dartmouth's clear shot advantage, both teams increased their shot counts in the second half. In the first, Dartmouth out-shot Bryant 15-5, while in the second, the Big Green put up 18 shots to Bryant's eight. The Big Green also posted two more goals while keeping the Bulldogs scoreless in the final half.
Hines shot the sixth goal in from the top of the circle off a pass from Sobel for her first goal of the game and fourth on the season.
Finally, the seventh tally came unassisted from Hood, completing her first career hat trick. Hood leads the Big Green with eight goals this year.
Even with such a large margin of points, McCormick stressed the team's need to stay constantly focused.
"One of our goals all the time is to play our game no matter who we're playing, and sometimes the hardest time to play your game is when you're playing to a level below you because it's easy to just forget the details, forget the structure and forget to stay disciplined," McCormick said. "That's something we struggled with today. Keeping structure on the field and remaining disciplined while also balancing that with being able to take risks and try new things."
Big Green goalkeeper Meagan Vakiener '12 saved her share of shots in the contest, turning away six attempts for the game.
While McCormick did note that the game demonstrated that the team has much to improve upon, she viewed Wednesday's contest as a good prequel to Dartmouth's match-up against Ivy foe Columbia University.
"It was a really good confidence booster for us," McCormick said. "Just having all different forwards score was a great sign of how much we've been improving. We haven't scored as many goals in a season in a long time."
The Big Green will get back into conference action when it faces off against Columbia University on Sunday in New York City.
