HAMILTON – The Colgate field hockey team returned to Tyler's Field for the first time since Sept. 1 and battled the Holy Cross Crusaders in a thrilling double overtime game with the Crusaders taking the contest, 2-1.
 
The Raiders' overtime game was their second of the season after winning in overtime against Bryant in the season opener on August 26, 1-0.
 
Colgate senior captain Whitney Jones (Sudbury, Massachusetts) tallied the game-tying goal with 20:19 left in the second half for her first tally of the season and ultimately force overtime.
 
Jones' goal was the first for the Raiders since Sept. 1 against Siena in a 4-2 loss.
 
Caroline Schaefer (Avon, Connecticut) picked up her first assist of the season and fourth of her career on Jones' goal.
 
Maria Krull (Leicester, Massachusetts) also continued to shine in the cage for the Raiders as she picked up her fourth consecutive game of 10 or more saves. Krull was particularly busy after halftime where she made eight saves in the second half and overtime.
 
Holy Cross' Emily Loprete scored both goals to give her a team-leading five goals on the season.
 
Loprete's first goal came with just 2:02 left in the first half to give the Crusaders a 1-0 lead. After a Colgate foul, Lauren Sutherland restarted play and fed the ball to Loprete where she spun around and fired a shot just passed Krull's pads.
 
Jones evened up the score with 20:19 remaining in the second half to knot the game at one goal apiece. Katie Connors (Manhasset, New York) inserted the ball of a penalty corner where Schaefer stopped the ball and fired the shot herself. Jones was positioned perfectly to the left of the cage and redirected Schaefer's shot to the top corner.
 
Midway through the second overtime, Holy Cross scored the game-winner on Loprete's second goal of the game. Rae Caliento fired a bullet from past the 25-yard line to Loprete at the top of the arc. Loprete stopped the ball before striking her shot off the backboard to end the game.
 
BOTTOM LINE
Holy Cross 2, Colgate 1 (2OT)
 
WON-LOST RECORDS
The Crusaders won their fourth game in the last five games to improve to 5-3 (1-1 Patriot League) while the Raiders drop to 1-9 (0-2 Patriot League).
 
KEY RAIDER INFO
-Whitney Jones scored the second half equalizer for her first goal of the season and 13^th of her career
-Jones tied for the game-high with six shots goal
-Maria Krull tallied 10 saves, including eight in the second half and overtime, for her fourth straight game of 10 or more saves
-Krull now has six total games of 10 or more saves this season
-Katie Connors picked up her first defensive save of the season
 
FACTS AND FIGURES
-Holy Cross held the advantage in shots at 21-11 and edged Colgate in shots on goal at 13-9
-Both teams registered six penalty corners with the Crusaders earned a 3-1 advantage on penalty corners in the overtime periods
 
FROM THE SOURCE
Head Coach Cathy Foto
"I think we had a great week of practice mentally, we were lacking some of the things we needed to do previous to this but Jena and I were really happy with how we performed mentally. There is still another level of execution for us in terms of being more aggressive and generating more offense but I couldn't have been more pleased with the effort."
 
"We just need more corners, we have a great penalty corner unit and unfortunately its been hard to get corners so we figure if we can get more than one we'll be able to score so we're really happy about that."
 
"It's exciting, I think the fans love it, I think for coaches its nerve-wracking but on Friday I kind of had this feeling so we practiced and were really organized. Again, you've got to generate offense and that's what we were lacking. We're going to go back to the drawing board mentally and get ready for tomorrow."
 
Captain Whitney Jones
"It was a great feeling. Schaefer had the ball, she took a shot from the top, I tipped it in and it went top corner. It was a great feeling tying the game up and then we really took the momentum from there and went forward. We really used that to propel us to keep working hard for the rest of the game."
 
"We were back at home and we were really excited to be back in another Patriot League game. We wanted to bring it all and fight to the end; I think we did that today. It was tough having a double overtime loss but we really played hard today."
 
"If we bring this fight for the rest of the season, we're going to have a pretty successful end of the year."
 
UP NEXT
Colgate returns to non-conference action tomorrow afternoon when the Raiders host the Rider Broncs (5-4, 0-0 MAAC) at Tyler's Field beginning at Noon.