Head coach Kathleen Parker didn’t plan it. No one asked for preferential treatment, and Penn State surely didn’t lie down for the Syracuse field hockey team yesterday.

Betsy Wagner recorded eight huge saves in SU’s 3-2 victory at Coyne Field. When a Penn State forward literally ran on top of her, Wagner shoved her right off and just stared. Her nemesis didn’t even look up as she trotted away.

It was fitting that the players who would have big days were ones who hadn’t had them before. The players who excelled against Penn State, a team that has had SU’s number, were the ones who had suffered three straight losses.

Brittany Carriero set the tone and put her team ahead first in the game. Suffering from sore shins, she subbed out at the 20-minute mark, changed shoes, and played on. While freshman Jessica Lerew grabbed headlines last week with her two-goal performance this past weekend, yesterday’s game was different.

This was a senior thing. They were the ones that scored the goals. They were the ones that played in overtime.

After Penn State scored its second goal to go ahead 2-1, it was a senior captain who was at the right place at the right time.

‘With Leah (McKay), she’s probably going to do the right thing,’ Parker said before the season, ‘but you’re never going to notice her.’

But everyone noticed when she evened the score.

And when Parker narrowed her team from 11 to six players for overtime, she went with the ones who had been playing particularly well that day. So it was mostly seniors – Carriero, Meredith Gettel, Lindsay Kocher, Lindsay Peirson, Wagner and juniors Paige Sullivan and Joanne Lombard – who ran onto Coyne Field to try to make history.

Carriero didn’t have to go in. She battled stomach cramps throughout the game and drew the concern of several teammates before the overtime.

‘I ate too much before the game,’ she said. ‘I had Goldstein but it didn’t sit well.’

Losing wouldn’t have sat well either. And the person who started it yesterday got to finish it. Carriero hustled back to thwart a Penn State breakaway. She got it upfield to Peirson, who made a beautiful turn, feeding the ball through her defender’s legs to get it to Sullivan. She took the ball all the way down the left side and put the initial shot on goal before Gettel punched home the rebound.

‘That’s not anything that was conscious,’ Parker said about choosing the seniors. ‘But what this team is starting to show is a lot of heart.’

‘It feels unbelievable,’ Carriero said. ‘It took us four years to do it but still it feels good.’

‘Coach (Parker) told us (after the game) it wasn’t just for us,’ McKay said, ‘but it was for a generation of Syracuse field hockey players.’

Published on September 22, 2004 at 12:00 pm