Box Score Boxscore
PURCHASE, N.Y. – The Manhattanville field hockey team fell on Tuesday evening by the score of 4-1 to FDU-Florham on Senior Night at GoValiants.com Field. With the loss, the Valiants finish their conference slate with a record of 4-3 which is good enough for the No. 4 seed in the Freedom Conference Tournament where they will get a re-match against the Devils on November 2.
Prior to the game the three graduating seniors, Alyssa Nardone (Closter, N.J./Northern Valley Regional Demarest), Colleen Macedo (Norwalk, Conn./Brien McMahon) and Alyssa Coughlan (Rye, N.Y./Rye), were honored for their contributions to the field hockey program over the last four years.
The game started off in favor of the Valiants as Coughlan was able to get two shots off within the first 2:20 of the game. Under a minute later junior Kayla Meenan (Warminster, Pa./William Tennent) hit the post at exactly 3:00 into the game; however, they were the only three shots Manhattanville mustered in the first half.
FDU-Florham scored the first goal of the game at the 8:30 mark when Niki Ikeda scored off a direct pass from a penalty corner. The Devils scored once again off a penalty corner at the 20:43 mark and took their 2-0 lead into halftime.
After the break the two sides battled back-and-forth for the first 10 minutes of the period until a scrum in front of the FDU-Florham net saw Manhattanville junior Lindsey Stebenne (Barrington, R.I./Barrington) tip in her first goal of the season to trim the lead in half. However it was the only offense the Valiants could get as the Devils scored twice more to finish off the game and take the 4-1 win.
In goal, sophomore goalkeeper Amy Hilton (Pittsburgh, Pa./Kents Hill (Maine)) tied a season-high with 10 saves on the evening while her record falls to 11-6. Collecting the win was FDU-Florham netminder Tess Loughran who made six saves to collect her 10th win of the year.
Shots were well in favor of the Devils at a 25-11 margin, with shots on goal at a 15-7 clip. Penalty corners were also in favor of FDU-Florham at an 8-4 margin.
With the win, FDU-Florham clinched the No. 1 seed in the Freedom Conference Championship as the Devils tied Eastern for first place with a 6-1 record but earned the top spot via tiebreaker. King's (Pa.) picks up the No. 3 seed with a 5-2 record while Manhattanville rounds out the field with their 4-3 Freedom Conference mark.
The semi-finals of the tournament will be played on Wednesday, November 2 with King's (Pa.) playing at Eastern while Manhattanville travels to FDU-Florham for a re-match of tonight's contest. The two winners will play in the championship game on Saturday, November 5 at the highest remaining seed.
Manhattanville (11-6, 4-3 Freedom) will conclude their regular season on Thursday evening when they travel to Ewing, N.J. to take on the No. 4 team in the country, the College of New Jersey, with the match set to begin at 7:30 p.m. FDU-Florham (11-8, 6-1 Freedom) will be back in action in the Freedom Conference semi-finals against Manhattanville on November 2.
