Pair of Lehigh teams to open league play vs. Lafayette

This weekend marks the start of Patriot League play for a pair of Mountain Hawk squads, as the field hockey and women’s soccer teams begin their quest for a league championship. Both teams will be taking on archrival Lafayette, with field hockey traveling to Easton to take on the Leopards on Friday evening, while women’s soccer will host Lafayette on Saturday evening from the Ulrich Sports Complex. Both the field hockey and women’s soccer teams defeated Lafayette a season ago, and for the year, the Brown and White leads its archrival 2-0 in the All Sports Cup series, after men’s and women’s cross country downed the Leopards earlier this month in Easton.

After an up and down start to the season, the Lehigh field hockey team is anxious to begin the Patriot League portion of its schedule. Who better to get things going against, then archrival Lafayette, in Easton, on Friday evening beginning at 7:00. The Mountain Hawks (4-7) will be playing their seventh out of eight games on the road, with this being the first of three straight league games away from home. Lafayette comes into Friday night’s game with a record of 4-5 overall, and 3-3 at home. Last season, Lehigh downed its archrival 4-2 at the Ulrich Sports Complex to clinch a berth in the Patriot League Tournament.

Lehigh already has three wins on the road this year, which are more than each of head coach Julie Mazer’s first two seasons combined. On offense, senior captain Marissa Iannarone has jumped out to a fast start, with four goals, and a team-leading seven assists. Those seven helpers are also good for second in all of the Patriot League. Fellow senior Mary Beth Kuenne leads the Brown and White with five goals thus far, while Maureen Harrington and Kelsey Smith have chipped in with seven and five points respectively.

Although the start to the season isn’t what Iannarone and her Mountain Hawk teammates had envisioned, they have been focusing on improving everyday, and are anxious to start league play on Friday. “We definitely had a rough start to the season, but we have been trying to work on our weaknesses over the past few weeks in order to get ready for our Patriot League games. The season has been progressively getting better, and everyone has been working extremely hard and we can see that through the increased level of intensity that we’ve been playing with at each practice.”

Senior captain Meghan Gove helps anchor the Lehigh defense. The former Patriot League and ECAC goal keeper of the week has been solid all season long in the cage, with six games of double digit saves, including a career-high 18 at Brown on September 18. Gove currently leads the Patriot League in saves with 110 and in saves per game with 11.0.

In front of Gove, senior captain Mel Lepko directs the Mountain Hawk line of defense, and she speaks on behalf of all of her teammates, when she says this rivalry is something special. “Our game versus Lafayette is always the biggest and most anticipated of the season. Last year this game determined who would make it to the play-offs.”

Lepko continues, “Being a part of the Lehigh-Lafayette rivalry is like nothing I have ever experienced; it's intense, it’s nerve-racking, and most of all it makes my teammates and I so proud. To be a part of such a long-standing, famous rivalry is an honor and privilege that I assure I do not take for granted.”

When the time comes on Friday evening, both Iannarone and Lepko know that Lehigh must be on top of its game in order to be successful. “We are going to need to play smart and confident for the full 70 minutes,” explains Lepko. “Our stick skills and passing will need to be sharp and we will absolutely need to make smart decisions with the ball.”

Iannarone echoes those comments. “In order for us to be successful on Friday, I think we just need to play our game, a passing game, and keep up the intensity that we have had in practice this past week.”

Lafayette is led by Maggie DeFilipo with three goals, three assists and nine points. Laura Fabian has chipped in with three goals and seven points, as has Amanda Eggleston. In goal for the Leopards, Jill Lambert has started all nine contests, recording 81 saves in 644 minutes of action. Lambert is currently sporting a 2.28 goals against average.

Common opponents for the two teams thus far have been Temple, Cornell, Georgetown and Columbia. Lafayette is in the midst of a season long nine-game home stand, in which the Leopards are 2-3 on so far.

Lehigh’s women’s soccer team opens up Patriot League play Saturday night as the Mountain Hawks welcome their archrivals, the Lafayette Leopards to the Ulrich Sports Complex. Lehigh comes in looking to maintain the momentum established by a record 8-1-1 start that saw the Brown and White record all eight wins by shutout. The Mountain Hawks have won their last two games, including a 2-0 blanking of Temple last Sunday. Lafayette enters Saturday’s game with a record of 1-5-3 record. The Leopards are looking to snap a seven game winless streak this season and a three game losing streak to the Mountain Hawks.

“The (Lehigh-Lafayette) rivalry is huge,” said sophomore defender Michaela Pawlewicz. “It’s something the whole team is into and even the younger players are very aware of.”

After advancing to the Patriot League championship game last year, Pawlewicz and the Mountain Hawks hope to kick off this year’s league season on a positive note. “Obviously it’s a big game because its our first Patriot League game. The fact that its against Lafayette makes it that much bigger. We would like to get off to a fast start in the league and a win over our rivals would definitely help us.”

Lehigh continues to win with defense, allowing just two goals in ten games so far this season and establishing a new school record with eight shutouts. Freshman goalkeeper Julie Kafka has been outstanding in her young career, with a 7-1-1 record, seven clean sheets and a goals-against average of 0.22, which ranks fifth in the nation. Only two schools in Division I Soccer, Boston College and BYU have a lower goals-against average than Lehigh.

Offensively, Lehigh has had a balanced attack. Junior Gina Lewandowski leads the team with four goals and nine points. Sophomore Jen Fetsick and junior Daniela Molina have added three and two goals respectively for the Brown and White.

"Our start to the season was great, but that doesn't matter anymore," notes Pawlewicz. "The real part of our season starts Saturday, and records up to that point don't matter. It is all about what this team can do from here on out."

Lafayette’s current seven match winless streak has seen the Leopards lose four contests and tie three. Lafayette last played on Monday night losing 2-0 at home to Fordham. Sophomores Carolina Tuttle and Alison Hingley have been the go-to players for the Leopards. Tuttle has three of Lafayette’s four goals this season while Hingley has the other, plus two assists.

Lehigh leads the series between these rivals 8-4-2 and the Mountain Hawks have won the last three meetings, including a 3-0 victory last year in Easton.

Saturday night’s game gets underway at 7:00 pm and will be broadcast online at lehighsports.com with streaming audio and video provided by Yahoo! Sports.

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Pair of Lehigh teams to open league play vs. Lafayette

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