Box Score
Haverford, PA - The Messiah College Falcons (5-1) returned to their early season form on Thursday evening, getting off to a fast start and dictating the tempo from the first whistle in a 2-1 win over the 12th-ranked Haverford College Fords (5-1).
“It has been our goal all year- to come out strong and set the tone. It was great to see our girls bounce back from Saturday's performance [against Salisbury] and get a win,” head coach
Brooke Good said after the game.
The Falcons turned up the pressure early, visibly rebounding from a slow start in their first loss of the season to no. 2 Salisbury University Sea Gulls.
Just 3:34 after the opening whistle, senior
Juliana Hershey put the Falcons on the scoreboard for the first time. With the Falcons on the attack and the pressure turned up, the Falcons'
Emily Hursh made a few nifty moves to avoid Ford defenders and found Hershey on the left side of the net for a tap-in goal and a 1-0 lead.
Play continued, mostly near midfield, over the next five minutes of game time until the Falcons'
Kelly Martin demonstrated a great individual effort to extend the Falcon lead to two. After entering the circle with the ball and sending numerous attempts towards the Ford goalkeeper that were blocked or saved, Martin followed up the attempt and gathered the rebound for a put-back goal.
The Falcons would continue to pressure the front of the Ford net. Junior
Brooke Sands had a flurry of chances throughout the stanza, but yielded no results. Haverford goalkeeper Sydney Hyder faced 10 shots on goal in the first half, four from Sands, and still the Falcons tallied only twice.
The second half started noticeably different than the first for the Falcons.
A resurgent Ford attacking group had the Falcons pushed back on their heels defensively as they found a little breathing room in their offensive zone. The Fords sent five shots towards the Falcons' cage, two saved by goalkeeper
Molly Gebrosky, the others sent just wide, in the first five minutes of the half.
With momentum seemingly on their side, the Fords found room to work in the offensive zone off a penalty corner at the midway mark of the half. Bridget Gibbons used the second of two back-to-back penalty corners for the hosts, finding Mary Hobbs near the top of the circle for her fourth goal of the season, cutting the Falcon lead in half to just one.
“They definitely caught us off guard coming out in the second half,” coach Good said. “We weren't ready for the fire they came out with early on in the second. I needed to regroup and calm our girls down, so we called a timeout.”
The momentum would return for the Falcons, though, as the Fords' Megan Holt received a yellow card in the 59th minute, requiring her to sit out for five minutes and giving the Falcons a man-advantage over that span. The extra player provided just the spark that the Falcons would need to finish out the game.
Just minutes later Holt would receive another yellow card, furthering the momentum push in the Falcons' favor.
The Falcons shifted the possession time to their side, keeping the ball primarily out of their own defensive zone until a late Ford attack yielded a golden opportunity that Gebrosky staved off with a blocker. A Ford forward received a pass just outside the reach of Gebrosky and turned to locate the net, but Gebrosky reacted well and booted the ball out of the zone with just 1:05 left to play.
“Overall, we played really well today. We came out early like we wanted to and scored some goals, got our corner opportunities and limited them on defense,” Good said of her team's overall effort. “We had a ton of good opportunities to score goals, which is great to see.”
Messiah held a 15 to nine advantage over Haverford in penalty corners, and sent 18 shots on goal at the Fords' net compared to six shots on goal from the Haverford offense. Ford goalkeeper Sydney Hyder made a career high 16 saves in the cage.
The Falcons will return home to face off against Commonwealth conference rival Elizabethtown College on Saturday, September 22. Game time is slated for 1:00 p.m.
