AMHERST — Sophie de Jonge and Grace Horgan each scored as UMass defeated VCU, 2-0, in the Atlantic 10 Field Hockey Tournament semifinals, Friday at Gladchuck sports complex.
The second-seeded Minutewomen (13-7) will play No. 1 Saint Joseph’s (17-3) in the championship, Saturday at 2 p.m. at Gladchuck.
UMass stifled the Rams, allowing only two shots on goal throughout the whole game. The match reflected the season’s first contest between the two teams, a game that UMass won 4-2.
“Our defense has been strong all year long, but what was better today was our possession coming out of the backfield,” UMass coach Barb Weinberg said. “So we’ve been working on our outletting for the last few weeks, and today we finally pulled it together to just play simple on our buildup and we were turning the ball over less today.”
UMass opened the scoring at the 24-minute mark in the first half after senior defensemen Melanie Kreusch blasted a shot to the right post, which was deflected into the net by sophomore midfielder de Jonge.
“We focused on getting penalty corners all year, and most of our goals come from penalty corners,” de Jonge said. “Today we tried to get more tips and I got to score my first goal which was awesome.”
The scoring continued at the 49-minute mark as redshirt junior forward Grace Horgan scored in similar fashion with a deflection goal of her own. After a great run and pass from junior forward Courtney Ocasal, Horgan found the left side of the cage to put the Minutewomen up 2-0.
“We worked on our defense all week, our outletting, the under pressure passing, and it definitely showed this game,” Horgan said. “We watched a lot of film on VCU, and figured out how to outlet around them.”
UMass has a quick turnaround as the Minutewomen will face 17th-ranked St. Joe’s Saturday, two weeks after falling 5-2 to the Hawks in Amherst.
The Minutewomen led 2-0 going into halftime of that game, then surrendered five goals in the second half.
“We definitely need to come out strong for 70 minutes against them. We had a great first half against them the first time we played, but dropped off in the second half a little bit,” Weinberg said. “So we’re going to have to play them strong all game long this time, and we’ll come up with a good game plan tomorrow.”