field hockey paints devils into corners

Chorney Second in Big Short Run Junior David Chorney crossed the line second out of 270 runners to lead the Muhlenberg men’s cross country team to a fourth-place finish at the Paul Short Run, hosted by Lehigh. The Mule women finished 11th out of 33 complete teams. Chorney trailed only a Division II runner from West Chester in matching the best finish by a Muhlenberg runner at the prestigious race. Classmate Timothy Van Syckle also placed in the top 10, coming in seventh and cutting his time from last year’s Paul Short Run by 47 seconds. Muhlenberg was one of only two teams (of 42 that entered runners) to put two athletes in the top 10. In the team standings, the Mules were behind two Centennial Conference schools (Dickinson and Johns Hopkins) and Division II Bloomsburg. Muhlenberg was ahead of four other CC squads and five Division II teams. The women improved on their 14th-place finish of last year. Senior Sara Gearin was 16th out of 240 runners, a full 72 seconds ahead of her 2006 time. In 39th place, Abby Simons was the 10th freshman across the finish line. Click here for Muhlenberg box score. Click here for complete women’s results. Click here for complete men’s results.

Quality, not quantity, on penalty corners was key to the Muhlenberg field hockey team’s Homecoming game against Dickinson.

The Mules (7-3, 3-0) took only six corners, but scored off three of them to turn an early 1-0 deficit into a 4-1 win.

“All our goals tonight were

Rutt now has eight goals and 11 assists for her career.

so well executed,” said senior back Nikki Rhoads. “All the time and work we put into our corners is really paying off.”

The final result would have come as a surprise to someone who left after the first 15 minutes. The Red Devils (3-7, 0-3) dominated the early going, taking two shots and scoring on the second one. But the goal-scorer got injured on the play, and the delay while she was being attended to allowed Muhlenberg to catch its breath.

“We got in a huddle and calmed down, and after that everything was right on,” related Rhoads. “Our passes were stick-to-stick, and we started beating them to every ball.”

In fact, the Devils did not take another shot after scoring their goal and had hardly any possession in the Mule half of the field in the second half. Muhlenberg tied the score when senior Kelly Shetron put in the rebound of Rhoads’ shot off a penalty corner with 8:56 to go in the half. Senior Lauren Rutt scored off a rebound with 1:40 left in the half to put the Mules up for good. Sophomore Kristen Sabia helped set up the second goal by hustling to chase down a long clearing pass, then taking the ball off the stick of a Dickinson back and winning a corner.

Two second-half goals sealed the win. With 10:44 left, sophomore Nicki Notarianni tipped in a Jillian Duffy cross for her team-leading seventh goal of the season, and later Shetron completed her second career two-goal game by blasting in a shot from 10 yards out after receiving a pass from Rutt on a fast break.

The win was Muhlenberg’s sixth straight in a Centennial Conference regular-season game dating back to last year.

“Three-and-oh in the conference sounds really good,” said Rhoads. “I’m proud of how the team is doing overall.”
Click here for box score.