On Friday, Villanova’s field hockey team secured a win at home against conference rival Providence. This win prolonged its season, as it landed a spot in the semifinals of the Big East Tournament.
Coming off of a three-game losing streak, one more loss threatened to end the Wildcats’ season. However, a 4-3 win against the Friars clinched a spot in the Big East Tournament for the first time in five years.
In the win, an early goal for Providence, followed by a successful shot from senior back Sabine de Ruijter, put the pressure on within the first five minutes.
The first quarter ended tied, 1-1, but senior forward Amanda Middleman put the Wildcats ahead on an assist from de Ruijter just over a minute into the second
period.
Following a blocked shot in the 20th minute, freshman back Gemma Lysaght scored her second career goal, giving Villanova a 3-1 lead going into the half.
“We knew that Providence was going to come out, be very difficult, and have a new game plan for [the] second half,” head coach Joanie Milhous said. “So that wasn’t a surprise, but we had great energy and we went into halftime saying we need to think of the score being us down, 1-0, because we knew they were going to come back strong.”
Coming out of the locker room, freshman Maddi Sears started in goal for the ‘Cats, where she remained for the rest of the game. In net, Sears was met with a successful shot from Providence only one minute into the third period.
In the following seven minutes, the Friars had three more attempted shots and one goal scored, compared to Villanova’s zero scoring attempts in the remainder of the period. The third period ended at a 3-3 tie.
“Third quarter was definitely a downfall for us,” Milhous said. “Providence came out really strong second half and they basically won the third quarter, so between third and fourth quarter we basically said ‘let’s put this quarter behind us, let’s keep moving forward, let’s keep doing what was making us successful’… and fourth quarter we just started attacking that much more and we went back to our first-half style of play.”
The final 15 minutes saw both yellow and green cards for both teams and a second goal from Lysaght off of a penalty corner from junior midfielder/forward Emma Schwarz with just five minutes remaining.
With the win, the Wildcats have secured themselves a No. 4 seed in their first tournament appearance since 2018. In their last Big East Tournament run, Villanova was ranked No. 4 but fell to then-No.1 seed UConn in the semifinals.
Villanova’s first opponent in the tournament is No. 1 Liberty, to which the Wildcats lost, 6-0, just three weeks ago.
“Liberty is obviously a very strong team,” Milhous said. “They’re technically sound, they are solid all across the field. […] When we played them the first time I told the team I’d love to have them again because I don’t think we showed them our best, so I am excited to see what our girls can do when we do show our best.”
The Wildcats will take on the Eagles at Temple’s Howarth Field on Friday, Nov. 3.
