Box Score PURCHASE, N.Y. – The Manhattanville field hockey team dropped their 2012 Freedom Conference opening contest by the score of 5-1 on GoValiants.com Field on Saturday afternoon. The lone Valiant tally was picked up by freshman Rylee McGuire (Grantham, N.H./Lebanon).
 
The Monarchs picked up the first shot of the game that was stopped by Valiant junior Amy Hilton (Pittsburgh, Pa./Kents Hill (Maine)) in goal. After the initial shot Manhattanville took control of the game for the next five minutes of play in which they registered five shots and took four penalty corners but were unable to convert on the series.
 
Over the next five minutes of game time King's took back control and ripped off a series of shots of their own, with the final one being stopped by a diving Hilton through traffic in front of the net. Two minutes later the Monarchs were able to put one on the board and take the early 1-0 lead with 13:29 gone by in the opening stanza.
 
King's took a 2-0 lead when they had a man-up situation that Lindsey Paduck took advantage of and put the visitors up by a pair heading into halftime. At the break the Monarchs led the Valiants in shots by a narrow 11-10 margin.
 
After the break the Monarchs struck just 40 seconds into the period as they shot a passed a ball from the corner to the opposite side of the goal mouth and into the goal to put King's up 3-0.
 
Manhattanville trimmed the lead back down to a pair when McGuire received a pass from senior Melissa Goncalves (Holtsville, N.Y./Sachem East) off of a penalty corner to put the Valiants on the board at the 38:37 point of the contest. For McGuire it was her fourth goal of the season.
 
Seven minutes later King's picked up one more goal after Jackie Sikora broke free from her defender after taking a pass, and was able to send it to the back of the cage to put the Monarchs back up by three. King's scored once more in the 66th minute after a costly Valiant turnover allowed Meghan Werimont to dribble the ball down the middle of the field and send it home for the fifth and final Monarch goal.
 
The final horn sounded a few minutes later and the Monarchs handed Manhattanville their first conference loss of the season. Final shots on goal for the game were 19-18 in favor of King's while shots on goal were 13-7 also in favor of the Monarchs. Penalty corners were tilted towards the Valiants as they doubled up their guests by a 16-8 differential.
 
Earning the win in goal for King's was Megan Withrow, who finished the game with six saves and one goal allowed. Taking the loss was Hilton who yielded the five Monarch tallies, and made six stops on the afternoon. Junior Julia Esposito (Greenwich, Conn./Greenwich) also picked up one defensive save for the Valiants.
 
Manhattanville (5-4, 0-1 Freedom) will be back in action a week from today when they travel to Dallas, Pa. to take on the Misericordia Cougars in another key Freedom Conference matchup. King's (5-3, 1-0 Freedom) will hit the field again on Tuesday against Marywood at 4:00 p.m.