YORK, Pa. – The University of Scranton field hockey team (1-1) dropped a hard-fought 2-1 battle to the No. 11 York (Pa.) Spartans (1-0) on Saturday at Kinsley Field in York.
Scranton saw several chances in the early going and found the back of the cage in the seventh minute as senior Reagan Dolan (Broomall, Pa./Bonner & Prendergast) took a feed from graduate student Katie Redding (Havertown, Pa./Haverford) and sent a shot off of York goalie Belle Fields and into the cage. Fellow senior Lauren Franco (West Chester, Pa./B. Reed Henderson) helped protect the one-goal lead with a defensive save in the 22nd minute, but the Spartans' Tori Heiserman found the equalizer just over a minute later to knot things at one. York had a pair of penalty corner opportunities over the remainder of the quarter and Riley Buschert gave the hosts a 2-1 lead in the 25th minute.
The Royals had a couple of quality scoring chances in the early stages of the third quarter, but Fields tallied a trio of saves on shots from Dolan and graduate student Elle Collins (Long Valley, N.J./West Morris Central). Seconds later, junior Annie Shaw (Exton, Pa./Villa Maria Academy) saw her attempt cleared out of danger by the Spartans' Libby Wild who recorded a defensive save that kept the score at 2-1. Scranton's defense withstood four penalty corner opportunities for York (Pa.) in the fourth quarter, but were unable to find the game-tying goal.
York (Pa.) held a 14-10 advantage in shots and Dolan had three to lead the Royals, while senior goalie Gianna Travia (Havertown, Pa./Cardinal O'Hara) made one save.
Fields tallied five saves for the Spartans.
Scranton will return home to host Arcadia on Saturday, Sept. 7 at 3 p.m. at Weiss Field.
--ROYALS--
