Radcliffe Hockey Battles SMU; Corsairs Tie Stickwomen 0-0

"We should have scored," said Radcliffe field hockey coach Debi Field. We showed good ball control and some nice moves on attack but we couldn't finish it off and put the ball in the cage."

And in this lies the tale of the Cliffe stickwomen's frustrating scoreless tie, in yesterday's game against the Corsairs of Southeastern Mass At Soldier's Field.

Although the visitors held something of a territorial advantage in the first half, they never mounted any sort of testing attack against the Cliffe defense. A few short corners, equivilent to an indirect penalty kick in soccer, went by the board for SMU as Radcliffe cage tender and co-Captain Carlene Rhodes hung tough in goal.

Radcliffe missed a golden scoring opportunity in the first half when crossed signals halted a two woman break-away, leaving striker Abbie Homans firing a divot of dirt on SMU goalie Lisa Druin.

Druin however had plenty to handle in the second half as Radcliffe, supported by a fairly strong sideline crowd, poured it on. A series of five consecutive short corners were repeatedly turned aside by Druin and company and although Maude Wood's blasts from the point may have bruised a few opposing legs, they made no dent in the score.

Field was disappointed by the fruitlessness of the short corners, "Ideally every corner opportunity should be a score," she said. "Today we were using something new with a hand stop and it is generally effective, but now we know what we have to work on."

Wood said some of the problem with the corners was that Che-nan Tang, who usually sets up the play, was not there and that there was no strong rushing after the initial shot.

"After last year I felt we had to prove ourselves today and since we didn't win I'm glad we at least tied," Wood said.

The stickwomen travel to New London on Saturday to tackle Connecticut College.