Rowan field hockey drops second straight conference game

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If the Rowan field hockey team’s season was a movie or a television show, right now would be about the time that things got interesting.

The Profs dropped their first two games of the season against Ursinus College and Franklin and Marshall College before going on an eight-game tear. The brown and gold outscored opponents 28-4 during the win streak and shutout half of their opponents.

But every good story has a plot twist.

Right when the team was hitting the middle part of its schedule, the win streak was broken. A 3-2 overtime loss to No. 19 ranked Kean University and a heartbreaking 3-2 loss to The College of New Jersey (TCNJ) has the Profs falling in a downward spiral.

Worse yet is the fact that both of those losses came in New Jersey Athletic Conference play. Due to that, the brown and gold sit alone at 0-2 in the basement of the conference standings.

“It’s disappointing,” head coach Michelle Andre said. “Any sport like this is a roller coaster. You get real high and then you get low. It can change in a matter of a minute and tonight it did.”

Rowan has lost seven straight games to TCNJ including the postseason. Five of those contests have been decided by one goal.

Following the loss to the Lions on Tuesday night, sophomore midfielders Rachel Galante and Jacqui Rosati had trouble putting the result into words.

“I think we came up in the beginning of the game,” Galante said. “Towards the end when we needed all 11 people, we began to settle and not use that push that we needed.”

Galante scored the goal that gave the Profs a 2-1 lead with only seven minutes remaining in the game.

“I’m just now coming off of an injury so it felt good to be back out there,” Galante said. “It was a big moment for all of us because I haven’t been out there to celebrate with my team in five games.”

However, it was not meant to last.

The Lions put together two goals in the 64th and 67th minute to ice the game.

“We just have to keep playing together,” Rosati said. “I think we lost that towards the end and that was our main downfall. As a unit, we’re unbeatable so I think we can do that on Friday.”

On Friday the brown and gold face off against Ramapo College. The Roadrunners are 2-5 on the year and are 0-1 in the conference.

If the Profs want to keep their hopes of making the NJAC Tournament alive, (and the NCAA Championship Tournament for that matter) then they must get back to putting wins together.

Ramapo should prove a good place to start doing that. Rowan is 12-0 all time against the Roadrunners.

However, Andre knows that they can not look past any opponent.

“We’re just taking things one day at a time,” Andre said. “We have to just go out and refocus for Ramapo. At the end of the day, every game matters and every conference game matters. We just have to do it.”

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