BOULDER (10/10/10) – The Colorado Buffaloes field hockey team was defeated by the Colorado State Rams 3-0 on Sunday morning at Kittredge Field in their first game of the fall 2010 season.“I think we had moments where we strung together a lot of great passing combinations,” said CU head coach Frances Friedland. “We have a lot of new players, but I feel like every game we get better. Overall we had our weak moments but I think it was a really well played game.”
Early on both clubs played each other very tightly as they were getting acquainted with one other and didn’t allow the other team to get any good scoring chances.
However at halftime CSU had a 1-0 lead after a goal in the 18th minute off of shot in the front of the CU net.
Colorado’s aggression for the ball was elevated to start the second half, but Colorado State used the limited chances that they received in the early going of the stanza to put another goal on the board in the 38th minute.
The Rams third goal of the game came in the 51st minute when they picked up a rebound ball in front of the Buffs net and fired it into the back of the cage.
Though the game was played under cloudy skies and a slight drizzle of rain, it didn’t prevent several young children to come to the game and participate in a free field hockey clinic afterwards that was put on by the CU players and coaches.“It all started with this dad that had girls and there was no field hockey in Boulder for middle school and younger girls to play,” said CU captain Ali Beach. “We decided to throw this community service event clinic in order to spread field hockey awareness in hopes of sparking teams and clubs and recreational field hockey teams in Colorado.”
CU will get the chance to avenge Sunday’s loss in eight days as they’ll play CSU again on Oct. 18 in Fort Collins. Beach said that now that the team knows what to expect from the coed Rams that they’ll be better prepared next time when they face them.
“I think we know what to work on now,” Beach said. “We’ve been working on a lot and we just need to hone those skills in and know what we are fighting up against and how to go around the guys. They set the three men in the back of the field as defense so I think we’ll know how to attack that next week better than we did today.”
The Buffs remaining schedule includes them taking on Colorado adult leagues on Oct. 24 at Colorado Academy in Denver and a tournament in California hosted by Cal Poly on Nov. 6-7.
Watch postgame interviews with CU head coach Frances Friedland and captain Ali Beach at www.youtube.com/cuclubsports.
