The Billiken’s women’s field hockey team saved their best for last during the Northern Pacific Conference postseason tournament. The Billikens finished sixth in the tournament.
The tournament, hosted by the Billikens, was a double-elimination format which seeded teams according to their records in the conference. All games were played at the Anheuser-Busch Sports & Conference Centre located in Fenton, MO.
The Bills opened as the sixth seed, and they had their work cut out for them early. They faced third-seeded Stanford.
During the regular season Stanford won easily 5-0, and not much changed other than the score in this game. Stanford cruised to victory, blowing out the Billikens, 7-0.
However, the season wasn’t over for the Billikens. The Bills took on seventh-seeded Appalachian State. In their first match this season, the Bills beat the Mountaineers easily, 3-0. This match proved to be more of a struggle than expected.
The scoring didn’t start until the beginning of the second half. That’s when the Billikens exploded. The Bills scored twice within the first 10 minutes.
Junior Heather Mattingly scored the first goal off an assist from senior Jenny Schwartz with 26:18 remaining in the game. Sue Albers scored unassisted minutes later, giving the Bills a 2-0 lead early in the second half.
That wasn’t enough for the victory. Appalachian State bounced back with two goals of their own. ASU’s Carrie White scored the Mountaineers’ first goal off an assist from Kimberly Rohrs and Katie Schulzitski at 20:50.
Appalachian State’s Christina Settle scored an unassisted goal at 16:56 to knot the game at two.
The Billikens weren’t going to be knocked down. With only 14:47 junior Keri Brunner scored the Bills’ third goal and clinched the victory. Junior goalkeeper Erin Linehan made seven saves, while Appalachian State out-shot the Billikens 15-4.
The Billikens advanced to take on the fourth-seeded Pacific Tigers from California.
In their first match of the season, the Tigers beat the Bills in a close contest 1-0. This game proved to be no different.
The Tigers jumped to an early 2-0 lead in the first half before the Bills turned it on.
Six minutes into the second half, freshman Lindsey Lombardo scored off a penalty corner from Kristen Burich to put the Bills back in the game.
Lombardo wasn’t finished, though. With 10:56 left in regulation, she netted an unassisted goal and sent the game into overtime.
Even this wasn’t enough, though, since neither team scored, sending the game to penalty shots.
Senior Molly Monohan and Lombardo scored the Bills’, goals in the first penalty stroke, but Pacific matched them to send the game into another series of penalty strokes.
The Bills’ Brunner and Burich scored for the Bills in the second series, but they too were matched by the Tigers.
That meant that the match would be decided by the first team to score in the next penalty series. On the Bills first shot, Brunner missed the net and Pacific’s scored to give the victory to the Tigers 3-2.
That ended the Billikens’ season, leaving them with a record of 5-14 and a sixth place finish in the NorPac Conference.
Standford was crowned the NORPAC champion. The Cardinal will have a play in game with Holy Cross to see which team receives the NCAA bid.
Two Billikens received end-of-the-year honors. Mattingly was named to the NorPac All-Conference first team, while freshman Lombardo was named to the second team.
