PSU Sports Wrap Up

The Women’s soccer team has two games under their belt early in the 2014 season, as they currently post a 1-1 record. In the team’s home opener against Western New England College, the Panthers were able to get goals from sophomores Emily Crawford (Albuquerque, N.M.), Hannah Kallis (Sanford, ME), and freshman Ashley Brenner (Londonderry, N.H.). The 3-0 win not only avenged the teams 3-1 loss to WNE last season, but also allowed for first-year Head Coach Ryan Joy to capture his first career win. PSU was unable to continue the momentum from the first game of their season, as they fell to Salem State University on Tuesday (9/9) night. Despite sophomore goalie Annaliese Schmidt (Billerica, MA) posting a shutout through the first 84 minutes of the game, Salem was able to capitalize on an opportunity at the end of regulation to break the 0-0 game. Schmidt, who had over 170 minutes of shutout play to start the 2014 season, ended up with 11 saves in the non-conference contest. The Panthers will continue their season against Bridgewater State University on Saturday (9/13) night.

The football team had a nail-biter this past weekend, and despite a 25-yard field goal by Rob Giles (Derry, N.H.) that forced the game into overtime, they were unable to capture the win against Castleton State on Saturday (9/6) afternoon.  Mark Hennessy (Westford, MA) rushed for 99 yards, and scored the only touchdown for the Panthers, but his two yard run in overtime was ultimately the last successful play that PSU was able to run, as Castleton intercepted sophomore Ryan Perron (North Attleboro, MA) to end the game. Hennessey kept the team in the game, as he ran the ball extremely hard, and even had the opportunity to throw a pass, which was a successful 51-yard completion to RJ Kasper (Killingworth, CT), that ultimately led to Giles’ second field goal of the game. Despite the 20-13 loss, Giles was named MASCAC Special Teams Player of the Week, which is the fourth time the senior has been named to the award. The Panthers will look to capture the first win of their season when they have their home opener on Saturday (9/13) afternoon against Mount Ida College.

By winning in three straight sets, the volleyball team was able to defeat Framingham State to capture their first win of their 2014 campaign. The three sets, which resulted in final scores of 25-23, 25-22, and 25-17, were led by strong performances by Jana Nieman (Fair Lawn, N.J.), who had a game-high eight kills, Kristen Perrotta (Hudson, N.H.), who had 27 assists, and Brenna Peruch (Cave Creek, AZ), who had a game-high 13 digs. The Panthers’ first win came in their fifth contest of the season, as they played some extremely stern competition in the Endicott Invitational. Luckily for the Panthers, none of these games counted against their all-important Little East Conference record, as their in-conference record is crucial for the yearly LEC post-season tournament. PSU’s first conference game, which is against Rhode Island College, will be played on Saturday, September 13. 

Through three games, the field hockey team holds a 2-1 record after defeating SUNY Brockport and Castleton, while falling to Springfield University in the Zenaty Invitational last weekend. Nikki Garvey (Canaan, N.H.), who led the team last season with 25 goals and seven assists, is off to a strong start, as she has three goals and four assists through three games. Including the points Garvey has accumulated this season, she is now up to 4^th on PSU’s all-time points list, and still has at least 14 games to continue climbing up the record sheet. It is possible that she can become the all-time leading scorer in PSU field hockey history, as coming into the season, she needed only 51 points to capture the top crown (as a junior last season, she had 57 points [goals count as two points, assists one point]). Sophomore Kaitlyn Wilder has also had a strong start to the season, as the two-sport athlete (she is also on the women’s lacrosse team) has four goals and three assists in the early part of the season. The home opener for the Panthers will take place on Saturday (9/13) afternoon, as Worcester State, who is an in-conference opponent, comes up north to face PSU at 2:00 P.M.

The tennis team won their first contest of the season, as they defeated Little East Conference opponent Southern Maine 9-0 on Sunday (9/7) afternoon. The combination of Zara and Sunny Jakubas (both Califon, N.J.)  not only won both of their singles matches (with Sunny winning 6-0, 6-0), but also won their doubles competition to give the team three of their nine points. Between all 15 sets that were contested, PSU captured 96 games, while USM won only 21. Against Colby-Sawyer (9/10), the PSU won 6-3 in their first “home” contest this season (despite the fact the match was over at Holderness). The confidence this gives the team should carry over extremely well for the rest of the season, as they will have their third match of the season on Saturday (9/13) afternoon. The next in-conference match for PSU will take place on Saturday, September 20^th.

Despite two tough losses against New England College and Colby-Sawyer, the men’s soccer team will look to get back on track, despite playing all of their “home” games 15 miles down the road in New Hampton. Due to the construction of the athletic fields that have been going on all summer, the soccer team ultimately got shafted the worse out of any of the Fall sports teams, as they won’t be able to have a legitimate home game all season. Despite this adversity, sophomore goalie Felix Lindeberg (Stockholm, Sweden) has played well in net, only allowing three goals over the 180 minutes he has been in net. In a 2-1 loss to NEC, Ted Karlstrand (Halmstad, Sweden) was able to give the Panthers an early lead after Senad Mehmedovic (Concord, N.H.) set up the junior for the goal. On Wednesday (9/10) night, the Panthers captured their first win of the season over Salem State behind goals from Karlstrand, Petro Masumbuko (Manchester, N.H.), and two goals from Nick Rutherford (Batesman Bay, New South Wales). PSU will look to continue the momentum that they gained in this game when they play Castleton on Saturday (9/13) afternoon.