The field hockey team wrapped up the Patriot League regular season at home Sunday, clinching the PL title by defeating the Lehigh Mountain Hawks 6-1 in front of family and friends.
After honoring the careers of seniors Ashley Foley, Maggie Hall and Denise Infante, the Eagles came out of the gates early, taking advantage of penalty corners to create scoring opportunities.
Using one of these situations, Infante was able to score her 10th goal of the year at the 2:22 mark of the first half to give the Eagles a 1-0 lead.
The Eagles doubled their lead on a tally by sophomore Savannah Graybill, her 11th goal of the season, but the span was cut in half only seconds later on a Mountain Hawks goal by Kara Zweizig to make it 2-1.
This was as close as Lehigh would get for the rest of the match. The Eagles continued to capitalize on Lehigh's miscues, scoring three more times off penalty corners in the first half to take a commanding 4-1 lead.
Kirstin Gebhart scored her first goal of the season, and Irene Schickhardt buried one in the back of the net for the Eagles.
AU added to their run in the second half. Hall and Emily Stovicek scored off of penalty corners to up the score to 6-1.
Strong goaltending by sophomore Alyssa Poorman held up the final five-goal margin of victory.
With the win, the No. 17 Eagles improve to 4-0-0 in league play and 11-4-0 overall.
The team also clinched the regular season PL title and the right to host the PL tournament in the first week in November, a major goal of the season, according to AU assistant coach Sarah Krombolz.
"Goal No. 1 was to win the PL regular season, so it was really good that we were able to accomplish that," Krombolz said. "Next is to win the PL tournament and advance to the NCAA [tournament] play-in game."
The Eagles end their regular season next Saturday when they travel to Worcester, Mass., to play the Holy Cross Crusaders before returning home Nov. 2 to begin the PL tournament.
