Levins nets 11th of the season

RINDGE, N.H. (October 8, 2011) – Senior forward Tia Levins (Manchester, Maine) notched her team-leading 11th goal of the season in the second half on Saturday afternoon, but a pair of first-half goals would prove the difference, as the Franklin Pierce University field hockey team dropped a 2-1 decision to No. 4 nationally ranked Massachusetts Lowell in Northeast-10 Conference play at Sodexo Field. Over the course of the afternoon, the game wound up nearly even, with Lowell posting the slimmest, 15-14 advantage in shot attempts and each team earning nine penalty corners.

With the loss, Franklin Pierce falls to 5-8 (2-3 Northeast-10), while Massachusetts Lowell improves to 12-2 (6-1 Northeast-10).

The early portions of the first half featured back-and-forth action and scoring chances at both ends of the field. The Lowell defense threw itself in front of several scoring opportunities by Franklin Pierce in the opening 21 minutes, including the block of a shot by junior midfielder Megan Bird (Laconia, N.H.) off a penalty corner in the 21st minute of the contest.

The counter-attack off the blocked shot would be productive for the River Hawks, as it ultimately earned a penalty corner at the other end of the field in the 22nd minute. Lowell sophomore forward Ali Ferraro injected the ball for the River Hawks, sending it to fellow sophomore forward Melissa Effertz at the top of the circle. Effertz wound and fired a shot which slipped its way through traffic and found the back of the cage for her 10th goal of the season.

Franklin Pierce would nearly knot the game just over four minutes later when sophomore forward Chanelle Letarte (Lunenburg, Mass.) found herself with the ball and space on the right side of the circle. She uncorked a shot from 15 feet out which beat Lowell sophomore goalkeeper Melanie Hopkins on the far side, but whistled wide of the left post by mere inches.

As the Lowell defense regrouped after the near miss, the counter would again prove costly for the Ravens. This time, Ferraro would find herself with the ball and running room down the right wing on a partial breakaway. With the defense closing, she stepped into the circle and struck a shot ticketed for the top corner. Franklin Pierce senior goalkeeper Brittany Nyzio (Attleboro, Mass.) got a piece of it, but it was not enough to keep it out of the cage, as the ball made its way over the line for Ferraro's 13th goal of the season.

Coming out of the halftime break, Franklin Pierce opened the throttle offensively in a rally attempt that nearly proved fully effective. The Ravens earned a pair of penalty corners in the first five minutes of the second stanza, and used both to set up plays for senior midfielder Kim Jaksina (Townsend, Mass.). On the first, the Lowell defense was able to redirect the shot away from the cage, while the second narrowly missed the target.

After the backline fended off three successive Lowell corners, the Raven offense got back to work, earning three more corners in a span of three minutes. The last of the three would ultimately lead to the lone Franklin Pierce goal of the afternoon, though not directly. As the River Hawk defense attempted to clear the ball through the right side of its formation, Levins created her own opportunity. She stripped the ball from the right back along the sideline, chipped the ball by a defender and caught up with it to find herself with a partial breakaway from the left wing. Her shot would beat Hopkins low and inside the right post to cut the deficit in half at 2-1. It was the team-leading 11th goal of the season for Levins, who is now just one goal behind her own single-season program record from a year ago.

The Franklin Pierce attack kept the pressure on in the immediate aftermath of the goal, before Lowell used its own offense to kill some of the clock, earning three more penalty corners in the final 10 minutes of regulation. After successfully defending all three, Franklin Pierce would later pull Nyzio for the extra attacker in the final minute of play and worked the ball back into the offensive end before ultimately running out of time, as Lowell escaped with the 2-1 win.

Nyzio turned aside four of the six shots on her cage on the afternoon, but ultimately took the loss (4-6) in front of the net for Franklin Pierce. Hopkins made two saves against three shots to pick up the win (12-2) between the pipes for Lowell.

The Ravens return to the field on Monday, Oct. 10, when they remain home to host American International in a Northeast-10 Conference contest. Game time is set for 4 p.m. at Sodexo Field.

For more information on Franklin Pierce Athletics, please visit the official website of Franklin Pierce Athletics (http://athletics.franklinpierce.edu). Also be sure to follow the Ravens through the Department of Athletics' official Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/FranklinPierceRavens), its YouTube channel (http://www.youtube.com/franklinpiercesports) and its Twitter feed (http://twitter.com/FPUathletics).