By Jonathon Chun
jchun@statenews.com
One of the biggest questions a coach must ask themselves after a close loss is whether her team lost out on an opportunity or left everything on the field.
Following a weekend split that saw a loss to American in double overtime, field hockey head coach Helen Knull feels confident that her team is leaving everything they have on the field. After splitting two games for the second weekend in a row, it could be easy for players and coaches to get frustrated with results without looking at the whole picture.
“Something our team has always loved is overtime,” senior captain Heather Howie said. “We have a lot of speed on our team and space is good for us.
“We definitely do look to win the game in regulation, but sometimes it doesn’t go that way. Getting to overtime is almost a second chance as we see it sometimes. Or, in the other case for the other team.”
There were several positives that came out of MSU’s trip to D.C. this weekend, and one was clearly the play of redshirt sophomore goalkeeper Sierra Patton. After stopping four shots in the win against St. Joe’s, Patton nearly willed her team to victory against American. She made a career-high twelve saves on Sunday before allowing the only goal of the game with just two minutes left in double overtime.
“She was mentally ready. She was physically ready,” Knull said. “She played a great game. She kept us in it a number of times in regulation and overtime.”
As reassuring as Patton’s play was, the lack of production from the offense left something to be had after the brilliant goalkeeping performance. After generating twenty-eight shots on net in their previous two games combined, the Spartans were only able to get five shots on net against American.
More of an anomaly than a trend, Knull is not worried about the offense in the slightest bit.
“We had offensive output, we just put so much wide,” Knull said. “I’m not worried about it. I think it’s just the way the weekend went.”
One of the main focus points this season for these Spartans has been focusing on the day-to-day process. One of the keys in doing this is to forget about what happened yesterday and not get caught up in what tomorrow might hold.
Knull will use this week of practice to focus on that process.
“We know we’re this close,” Knull said. “We know it’s the details. It’s just parts of our basic skill and execution ... It’s just putting each piece together every game.”
The start of this season could be seen as a similar one to last, where the Spartans started the season 3-6 and couldn’t find consistency right away. While the end result of that season is something this team is striving for, ideally the team would like to click on both sides of the field before Big Ten season.
