NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- Playing for the first time in nearly two years, the Yale field hockey team relied heavily on its veterans Friday afternoon in the season opener at Johnson Field against Merrimack -- and those veterans delivered in a big way. The senior class -- midfielder
Iliana Cabral, midfielder
Imogen Davies, forward
Kelly Dolan and midfielder
Sarah King -- totaled two goals and six assists. Yale even got a goal from a grad student (forward
Anissa Abboud). Juniors
Theodora Dillman (two goals) and
Alissa Wong (one) also chipped in, and the end result was a 6-0 win.
Yale (1-0, 0-0 Ivy League) had last played on Nov. 9, 2019, a 4-1 win over Brown that was the Bulldogs' fifth win in six games to end that season. The way they played on Friday made it look as if they have not missed a beat. They outshot Merrimack (0-3, 0-0 NEC) 12-1 in the first half, taking a 2-0 lead on goals by Davies and Abboud. A pair of goals by Dillman and the Yale penalty corner unit broke the game open in the third, and Dolan made it 5-0 at the 41:45 mark. The corner unit delivered again on the game's final goal, with Wong scoring off assists from Cabral and Davies in the fourth.
Davies, Yale's captain, finished with one goal and three assists.
"Midge's leadership on the field and off the field is what you saw today," said
Pam Stuper, Yale's Caroline Ruth Thompson '02 Head Coach of Field Hockey. "She has led us through the pandemic with her classmates, and that was reflected in the goals and the shutout today. The stats speak for themselves"
Davies, like Cabral and King, was originally a member of the Class of 2021 but the pandemic forced a change in her academic plans that enabled her to play this season. Abboud, meanwhile, got her undergraduate degree and is now playing as a student at Yale's School of Public Health thanks to a waiver by the Ivy League allowing members of the Class of 2021 to play at their schools as graduate students in 2021-22. The result is a unique roster that includes four players who began their Yale careers in 2017 and 11 players who had never seen any varsity action prior to this season. Every healthy Bulldog played and contributed Friday.
Cabral's previous scoring had come on a pair of goals in 2019 and one in 2017, so her assists Friday were the first of her career. She has been a regular contributor in many different ways throughout her time with the Bulldogs, and reaffirmed that role on Friday. Her assists came as the stick stopper on two corner goals.
"Ili is that player that every coach wants," said Stuper. "She can come off the bench and you don't miss a beat. It's the same level of skill as our starters."
The one area where the Bulldogs do not have veterans to lean on is in goal, where sophomore
Luanna Summer has taken on the starting role after playing a total of 60 minutes in relief of All-Ivy League keeper
Sydney Terroso '21 in 2019. Summer and first year
Alexa Pitts were up to the challenge on Friday, combining for the shutout.
Overall, the season opener provided confirmation that the Bulldogs have kept moving forward despite the challenges presented by the past 18 months.
"We told the players that we get to hone our skills and get to spend time doing things we typically don't do," Stuper said of the team's preparation during the 2020-21 academic year. "It was an incredible chunk of time in which we could build, and that paid off. I'm proud of the girls because they took that into the summer and elevated their level of play."
Yale returns to action Sunday, hosting Fairfield at 2:00 p.m. at Johnson Field.
