Hofstra field hockey team confident heading into CAA play

Fresh off a 6-0 romp of Siena Sunday, the Hofstra field hockey team is sky high with confidence as it gets sets for Friday afternoon's Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) opener at 14th ranked Drexel.

After losing the first two games to Boston University and Albany, the Pride (5-3) have won five of six including back-to-back shutouts of Fairfield and Siena this past weekend. "Our confidence is very high right now," said Hofstra field hockey head coach Kathy De Angelis. "We do know that we are coming to a team [Drexel] that is one of the top teams in the country and we feel that our performance in the past eight games has prepared us for this coming day."

With All-CAA midfielder Amy-Lee Levey red-shirting this year due to injury, other Pride players have stepped up on offense led by junior Genna Kovar (22 points), Krizia Layne (16 points) and Arielle Williams (13 points). "We're all stepping up and coming together as a team," said Kovar, who earned third-team All-American accolades last year.

Hofstra’s CAA opener at Drexel starts at 4 p.m. Friday Sept. 24 followed by a Sunday road tilt at Ivy League power Yale. Following conference road games next weekend at 17th ranked James Madison and Virginia Commonwealth, the Pride return to the friendly confines of Hofstra Field Hockey Stadium versus William & Mary and Old Dominion on Oct. 8 and 10th.

Hofstra field hockey caps dramatic weekend with CAA playoff berth

It was a dramatic weekend for the Hofstra field hockey team that included a loss, a win, a trip the emergency room and nervously viewing a key conference game online that potentially could have ended its season. When the dust settled however head coach Kathy De Angelis found her program back in the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) Championships for the sixth straight year, putting a young team comprised of 11 freshmen and six sophomores just two wins from an NCAA tournament berth. 

Hofstra (12-7, 5-3 in the CAA) officially punched its ticket as the fourth and final seed for a CAA Championships after James Madison defeated Northeastern in double overtime on Sunday afternoon. A victory by the Huskies had the potential to put Hofstra in a logjam for fourth place with Old Dominion, Northeastern and James Madison, and could very well had put a cap on the Pride’s season depending on what tie-breaker formula the CAA used. Instead Coach De Angelis and her players that viewed the dramatic game on Northeastern’s website were joyous in front of their computer screens knowing they lived to play another day.

The Pride learning its playoff fate on a computer was far from the only tense moment during Halloween weekend. After losing at 17th ranked Delaware 4-1on Friday night, De Angelis found herself traveling to an emergency room to visit key players Amy-Lee Levey and Gena Kovar, who had both got hit in the hands by sticks on two separate incidents during the game. The duo was cleared to play in Saturday’s critical game at Towson but had to wear lacrosse gloves in order to protect their hands, but both contributed heavily to the 3-2 come-from-behind win with Levey scoring two goals and Kovar registering two assists.