From start to finish the Ball State University field hockey team knew that it needed to play a full 70 minutes to win its two games this weekend.
However, the Cardinals came up just short of that goal.
Ball State opened its season by losing two home games. On Saturday the Cardinals lost to the College of William and Mary 4-1, followed by a 4-3 loss to Northwestern University on Sunday.
"This team is not satisfied and they are angry," coach Annette Payne said. "Overall as a team we don't want to lose and we obviously want to win. The thing for us is to get the mentality to just be relentless,"
In both games combined, Ball State was outshot 45-14 and only had more than five shots in one of the four periods.
"We have to put 70 minutes together and every player has to come out and do their job," forward Lindsey Quay said. "If we come out and everyone is responsible for what they need to do I have no doubt in my mind that we can be victorious over any team."
Against William and Mary, the Cardinals were scoreless in the first period and took an early lead in the second after a Quay goal. However, the Tribe responded by scoring four unanswered points in the final 30 minutes of play.
In the second game, Ball State allowed three goals in the first period to Northwestern and trailed 4-1 with 11 minutes remaining in the game before scoring two goals.
"I think we definitely had some breakdown points scored against us but we fought hard to the end," forward Tara Reed said. "We just need to put a whole game together and play 70 minutes."
A large part of Northwestern's success against the Cardinals was its offensive attack. All but four of the Wildcat players had at-least one shot in the game.
"We just waited too long to come out and attack these guys and it put us in a hole," Payne said. "Hopefully the thing that we take from this is that in order to win games you have to come out ready to play a team that wants to beat you."
Despite the 4-3 loss for the Cardinals, two late goals provide a source of optimism to build upon.
"It shows that when we are ready to play we can score two goals in 10 minutes and we have to come with that mentality every single day," Payne said. "We talk a lot about choices and it is absolutely about making the choice of coming out here and not caring who you are playing and being ready to compete."
Offensively, one of the positives for Ball State was the play of Quay, who had three goals and finished with more than half of the Cardinals' shots on goal this weekend.
"I'm not concerned with my individual statistics," Quay said. "I just want to see this team come together and put the ball in the cage as one unit."
Starting both games in goal for Ball State was freshman goaltender Caroline Lehman. While making her collegiate debut this weekend, Lehman faced 27 shots on goal and made 19 saves in the two games.
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