Box Score

WASHINGTON, D.C. (11/2/07) - The No. 17 American University field hockey team scored early and often to beat Colgate, 4-1, in the first semifinal of the Patriot League Tournament on Friday, Nov. 2, at AU's Reeves Field. The Raiders end their season with an 8-9 overall record, while the Eagles (15-4) advance to Saturday's championship game where they will face Lafayette, who beat Lehigh 2-0 in the second semifinal.

The Eagles controlled the tempo of the game from the start, but Colgate kept them off the board until nearly 20 minutes had elapsed in the game. Denise Infante shot in, but was denied by Raider sophomore goalkeeper Sarah Pedersen (State College, Pa.). However, Savannah Graybill was on hand to tap in the rebound and give American a 1-0 lead.

With exactly eight minutes left in the first half, the Eagles struck again. Infante was once again headed for goal, but her shot never reached Pedersen. Instead, Kirstin Gebhart redirected the ball past the Colgate keeper for her third goal of the year.

American was the beneficiary of 16 penalty corners in the game, including 11 in the first half, while Colgate received nine corners. However, it was a credit to the Raider defense that the Eagles failed to convert any of those corners. The closest American came to scoring a penalty corner goal was just under five minutes into the second half, when Anne-Meike deWiljes used the fourth touch after the start of the corner to score off a feed from Irene Schickhardt.

Although already playing with a solid lead, the Eagles added one more goal for extra insurance with just under nine minutes left on the clock. Anne van Erp put a shot on net that was stopped by Pedersen, but Christine Fingerhuth buried the rebound for her 10th goal of the year, and AU's fourth of the afternoon.

Colgate refused to go quietly, however. With 1:48 left in the game, the Raiders used a failed penalty corner opportunity to get on the board as senior Natali Plesniarski (Hamilton, N.Y.) fed junior Lauren Carey (Medfield, Mass.) for her team-best 11th goal of the season. Plesniarski added to her school-record assist total with the 21st of her career, and her 10th of the season. Plesniarski finishes the year tied for second on Colgate's single-season record list with junior Maddie Watrobski (Penfield, N.Y.) with 10 helpers on the year.