Sport shorts: Field hockey, women's soccer and men's tennis

By Mike McDonald
Collegian Editor
September 13, 2006

Field Hockey

With the new surface at Hank DeVincent Field still not quite ready for action, the Explorer field hockey team continued to play all of its games at other venues this week.

On Thursday afternoon, they faced off against Lock Haven University at Temple.

After 15 minutes, Lock Haven had already scored three goals on La Salle and taken an early lead. The rest of the half was scoreless, and La Salle went to the locker room down by three.

The Explorers were not able to get anything going offensively in the second half, while their Lock Haven counterparts picked up where they left off. Lock Haven left with a 6-0 win over the Explorers.

Saturday afternoon’s contest was also moved from La Salle to Temple University. This time the opponents were the Robert Morris Colonials.

It was evident early that this game would have a very different outcome than the previous day’s battle. The Explorers fired shots at the Robert Morris goalkeeper relentlessly, and La Salle ended up outshooting the Colonials by a count of 22-5.

This obviously was a huge factor in the final score of the game, as the Explorers won, 3-0. This win ended a three-game losing streak for La Salle.

In the game, junior goaltender Ellen Axelsen posted five saves in the shutout.

The final game for the week came on Sunday in Towson, Md. against the Towson Tigers.

The Tigers dominated most of the action throughout the game, and they outshot the Explorers by a count of 30-9. Axelsen allowed only two goals on these 30 shots.

La Salle could not get any type of offensive rhythm going, and they were shut out by Towson goalie Christina Armer. The final score was Towson 2, La Salle 0.

After the week’s games, the Explorers fell to 2-5 on the young season. They have two games coming up this week.

Women’s Soccer

The Explorer women’s soccer team faced some tough competition this past weekend. On Friday, they were matched up against the William and Mary Tribe, which happens to be the number 25 team in the country.

La Salle put up a good fight against William and Mary, and the Explorers were able to keep it close all the way through the contest.

The first half went almost completely scoreless. There were only 24 seconds left in the opening half, when William and Mary was able to score off of a free kick.

La Salle tied the game up 15 minutes after halftime. Freshman Sara Copare passed the ball to sophomore Dana Giordano, who was able to score the goal.

But with just under seven minutes left in the game, the Tribe scored the game-winner and left with a 2-1 victory.

Sunday was not much better for the Explorers. They played against Virginia Commonwealth, and the VCU Rams shut La Salle out by a score of 2-0.

The loss dropped the Explorers to 1-5 on the year.

Men’s Tennis

On Sunday afternoon, the Explorer men’s tennis team opened up its season with a match on the road against Lafayette.

La Salle did not exactly shine in this matchup.

Lafayette was able to win all six singles matches, and none of them were even close.

Lafayette even swept the Explorers in the doubles competition, winning all three of those matchups.

The men’s tennis team will be back in action on Sunday at 11 a.m., when they host West Chester.

mcdonaldm2@lasalle.edu