After four losses to nationally ranked teams this season, the Bombers finally found a way to get a 9–7 victory against No. 11 St. John Fisher College on March 22 at Higgins Stadium.
The Bombers fell into a 4–0 deficit in the opening eight minutes against the visiting Cardinals, and Bombers’ head coach Shannon McHale called a timeout. During that time, she said she let the players talk first, as they knew they needed to take personal accountability to turn things around.
“All I said was, ‘Who do you want to be?’” McHale said. “They knew that we needed to start playing our game, and they didn’t need me to tell them that.”
The Bombers responded with four first-half goals and trailed 6–4 at halftime but outscored the Cardinals 5–1 in the second half for the comeback victory.
The Cardinals led 7–5 for the opening 12 minutes of the second half before the Bombers pulled within one goal, tied the game and took the lead all in 1:23. Junior midfielder Niki Standera scored the go-ahead and game-winning goal on a drive right down the middle of Fisher’s defense with 17:35 remaining in the second half.
Junior midfielder Molly Fischer, who led the Blue and Gold with a hat trick, said the team was able to turn around the slow beginning to the game by tightening up the defense and turning those stops into offense.
“Once we’re manned up on defense, we were able to get it out of the zone even on long defensive sets,” Fischer said. “We got a hold of a couple of plays that [Fisher] had and really shut down everything.”
The Cardinals outshot the Bombers 27–17, but freshman goaltender Emily Ross tallied a season-best 14 saves to pick up her second win of the season.
Fisher’s head coach Molly Linda Michele gave credit to Ross and said her play in net was the pivotal point of the matchup.
“She was able to make a lot of stick saves and knock the ball away, and we couldn’t match that on the other end,” she said. “We got the looks we wanted on net, but you have to convert your shots on goal, and we couldn’t do that today.”
The South Hill squad will try to win consecutive games, taking on Elmira College at 4 p.m. March 25 at Higgins Stadium. McHale said the biggest adjustment the team needs to make before the match up is putting more pressure on opposing offenses.
“When Fisher scored those goals in the first half, we weren’t sliding and were letting them walk right in,” she said. “It’s hard to make those adjustments in games, it’s something we need to have a little more time practicing.”
