Lehigh University
Temple
Lehigh falls in season opener at Temple
8/30/2008 3:15:00 PM | Field Hockey
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PHILADELPHIA – Charise Young recorded a hat trick and Mandi Ruth added a pair of goals as Temple blanked Lehigh 5-0 Saturday afternoon in the season opener for both teams at Geasey Field. The Mountain Hawks dug themselves an early 3-0 hole against the defending Atlantic-10 regular season champions and never recovered as they suffered their fifth straight season-opening loss to the Owls.
“Temple is a very strong team and going into the game we knew we would have to play as well as we could,” said Lehigh head coach Julie Mazer. “It was certainly not a good first showing for our team. It was disappointing to see so many things that we worked on leading up to our first game that we did not do.”
The Owls needed just four minutes to find the back of the cage as Ruth scored her first goal off a corner, with Dannah Brehm picking up the assist. Young added her first tally just four minutes later, and Ruth netted her second a minute and a half after that as Temple took a 3-0 lead into halftime.
In the second half, Young added a goal on a penalty stroke in the 41st minute and completed the hat trick with an unassisted goal two minutes later.
Lehigh was out-shot 14-8 for the game and Temple held an 8-1 advantage in penalty corners. Senior Kalynn Davies registered two of Lehigh’s five shots on goal, while sophomore Katey Fardelmann and freshmen Caitlin Donnelly and Abby Tilton registered one each.
Sophomore Jessica Miller was credited with six saves for the Mountain Hawks, while her Temple counterpart Erin Hanshue was credited with six stops as well.
“We have a lot of work to do,” explained Mazer. “We’ll go back to work and make adjustments. We’ll look to get better when we return to practice on Monday in preparation of our next game.”
The Mountain Hawks will be back on the turf Wednesday night when they welcome West Chester to the Ulrich Sports Complex for the 2008 home opener. Game time is set for 7 p.m. and the contest will be broadcast online at Lehighsports.com with streaming powered by Yahoo! Sports College Broadcast.
