By Jordan Sawyer -- STAFF WRITER
On a breezy fall Friday at Hofstra Field Hockey Stadium, the Pride fell to 1-4 in Colonial Athletic Association play after a 6-0 defeat against reigning national champion University of Delaware, eliminating Hofstra from conference tournament contention.
“I couldn’t be happier of the performance today,” head coach Kathy De Angelis said. “I’m really, really proud of the effort that we put in.”
Delaware, ranked No. 7 in the national coaches’ poll, came into the game undefeated in CAA play after being named the conference preseason favorite. Delaware is the fourth nationally ranked opponent Hofstra has faced this season.
“I think that each game that we have had to play nationally recognized teams that the upperclassmen really helped to inspire the younger guys,” De Angelis said. “And each time we’ve gotten better and better and this is the best performance that we’ve played. So that’s the growth you want to see.”
“We don’t expect anything to happen overnight or you’re not doing it the right way,” she said. “So I’m really, really happy that we were able to finish as strong on a really high note to a team like Delaware.”
The Blue Hens scored three goals in each half, led by the dynamic duo of Greta Nauck, two goals, and Taylor Lister, goal and assist.
Delaware found the back of the net just over a minute into play after Nauck caused a turnover and slipped through the Hofstra defenders to fire an open shot past Carys Swan.
The Blue Hens continued to dominate the game offensively, tallying their second goal of the half in the ninth minute of play. Delaware’s first penalty corner left a wide-open Kayla Devlin out in front of the net after she took the corner and awaited a pass to poke the ball past Swan.
Hofstra went without an offensive input until 12 minutes into the contest.
The Pride took their only shot of the half off of their only penalty corner of the half.
Delaware’s third and final goal of the half came off the stick of Lister after Maggie Delp eluded Pride defenders and dished the ball off to Lister who hit a laser shot into the goal.
Nauck recorded her second goal of the game two minutes into the second half with a beautiful backhanded goal over Swan to stretch the Delaware lead to four goals.
The scoring barrage continued after a 20-minute hiatus when Lisa Giezeman gathered a rebound off a Swan save and put it into the left corner of the cage.
The Blue Hens then capitalized on a penalty corner to catapult to a 6-0 lead with less than eight minutes to play. Delaware’s final goal came on a perfectly executed corner by Devlin, Joosje van Weperen and Femke Strien.
Van Weperen found freshman Strien open on the right post for her third score of the season.
Philine de Wolf and Anne van den Boomen both fired shots for the Pride in the final six minutes but were unable to put the ball in the goal.
Delaware outshot Hofstra 25 to three with 15 shots on goal. Swan had nine saves on the day while facing a season high number of shots.