The 16th-ranked Elizabethtown College Blue Jays field hockey team looked to bounce back from a loss to York College at home last Tuesday with a win against Hood College. Hood is coming off a five-game losing streak, with their most recent loss 2-0 to Goucher College last Tuesday.
It was the first ever meeting between the two schools as Hood, along with Stevenson University, moves into the Middle Atlantic Conference from the Capital Athletic Conference this season.
It didn’t take long for the Blue Jays’ results to show on the scoreboard as senior Erin Meanix scored her first goal of the year off an assist by sophomore Taylor Alwine a little more than two minutes into the game. From that point on, the team never looked back.
About 10 minutes later, sophomore Kaylee Werner deflected a shot from senior Nadine Yunginger, making it 2-0. Two minutes later, another corner for the Blue Jays paid off as sophomore Kendra Hudson scored her fifth goal of the year from Alwine’s second assist of the day to make the lead 3-0.
The Blue Jays made the score 4-0 when Yunginger passed the ball off to Alwine, who took a quick, hard shot past Hood junior goalkeeper Ying Van Schaik for the score. A stingy Hood defense kept the Blue Jays from scoring the rest of the half.
In the second half, corners kept providing the scoring opportunities as senior Casey Fletcher scored two minutes in to keep the Blue Jays ahead 5-0.
With less than 12 minutes left in the game, sophomore Andrea Keady scored her third goal of the year off Alwine’s third assist of the game.  Tacking on one more goal for the Blue Jays not even a minute later was first-year Lisa Foose’s first career goal from Yunginger’s third assist of the game, tying Alwine’s three.
Hood had chances to put one in the net, but the combined efforts of Blue Jay goalkeepers senior Lindy Hamp, junior Marlena Johnson and sophomore Selene Jones kept the Blazers off the board. Jones tallied one save to preserve the shutout.
Werner was pleased with how the team played to obtain their first conference victory of the season. “Personally, I was exceedingly happy after losing two straight,” she said. “We just wanted to come out and prove that we don’t give up after a couple losses. We are still in this and we won’t back down. We are a family and we are in it till the end and will give everything we have for each other.”
Werner is confident that the team is capable of beating any team moving forward into conference play. “I believe we can beat any team that we play as long as we all give it our all and play together as we did against Hood,” she said. “We are still working on some things, such as double teaming, to strengthen the defensive side of our play and use it to our advantage in saving our energy as individuals.”
Junior Jackie Zylka took some positive experiences from the victory over Hood as well. “I feel as if the team really connected during our game against Hood,” she said. With the constant rotations we were able to work with every member of the team, and feed on each other’s energy.”
Moving forward, Zylka said that the team approaches the season one game at a time and approaches every game with a clean slate. She said, “It doesn’t matter how our last game went, or who the other team beat. It’s a new game and we’re all ready to get on the field to play our heart out.”
On Tuesday, Oct. 2, the Blue Jays faced their third conference opponent: Albright College. In another powerfully offensive game, Etown won 6-1.