Hanover
“Into the tent, let’s go,” the veteran leader called in a curt voice, making a sweeping gesture with one arm.
Her players assembled inside the plastic enclosure that shelters them from the water cannons that dampen the turf before each half. Their collective expression was a mixture of shock and embarrassment.
“This is about you and your pride,” said Fowler, who’s led the program for the past 16 years. “I see a lot of downcast faces in here.”
Trailing by a 4-0 score so early in a contest will do that to a team, especially a squad as young and shorthanded as the Big Green. What finished as a 6-1 Tigers victory showcased not only the visitors’ strengths but also the pinch in which Dartmouth (1-3) finds itself.
Because of several players quitting the past few years and two others being suspended two terms for academic misconduct, Fowler’s roster includes just 14 field competitors and three goalkeepers. Last season’s lineup was comprised of 19 field players and two backstops. Dartmouth now has three seniors, four juniors and six freshmen, five of whom start and all of whom are dealing with the mental overload of social and academic orientation activities.
Pacific “has some skilled players, and we decided to pass right to them,” said Fowler, noting that she only has five players with significant game experience. “They can finish, but it’s nothing we didn’t expect. We were always having to recover and back-tackle instead of doing our own passing combinations.”
Pacific (2-3) opened the scoring in the 11th minute and scored twice in 26 seconds during the 20th minute. The latter of those two tallies came on a penalty stroke. The visitors pushed the score to 4-0 during the 22nd minute and went up 5-0 just five minutes after intermission. By that time, fourth-year Tigers coach Andy Smith was substituting liberally and had backed his troops off.
Dartmouth broke up Pacific’s shutout bid when Morgan Philie scored on a rebound midway through the second half. The Tigers struck once again with five minutes remaining. Overall, the visitors’ goals came on shots from the circle out of regular play, off penalty corner feeds and by dribbling close in on Dartmouth goaltender Emma Plumb, who made six saves.
“We scored six quality goals today and I think we could have had a few more as well,” said Smith, a Dartmouth assistant from 2002-11 whose team held a 13-5 shot advantage during Sunday’s first half and a 21-14 lead for the game.
As he did two years ago, Smith has brought his team east for a week. The Tigers lost at Harvard on Thursday, pummeled Bryant in Hanover on Saturday and host Vermont on Dartmouth’s field on Tuesday. Pacific was 11-8 last fall, winning its most games since 2005 and capturing the America East Conference’s West Division title.
Smith’s team, a notably athletic bunch, pushes the pace at every opportunity, and it was too much for a Dartmouth squad still feeling its way. Even a depleted Tigers lineup didn’t help. Pacific began the game without one injured starter and lost three more during Sunday’s clash. Junior Emma Leach exited clutching her arm and was taken to a local hospital.
“We want to be the quickest team in Division I,” Smith said. “Everything we do is about moving forward at speed and getting numbers in front of the ball. There’s no complicated pressing or outlet patterns, and we don’t condition any more. We just play.”
Pacific’s lineup features 10 players from Spain, South Africa, Belgium, Canada and Mexico. Smith said prospects in the U.S., where field hockey is primarily an East Coast sport, have rarely heard of Pacific and sometimes don’t return his calls. He’s found however, that international recruits are often thrilled to hear from him.
“We’ve got a great school but nobody knows about it,” said Smith, whose athletic director, Ted Leland, held the same job at Dartmouth during the 1980s. “I’m charged with putting the best product on the field, and it doesn’t matter where our players are from.”
Dartmouth has also enjoyed international standouts, but never in bulk. Don’t expect the Big Green to do so in the near future, either, not after the college moved from “need blind” to “need aware” financial aid for foreign students last summer. Fowler said Harvard, Yale and Princeton maintain the “need blind” standard, but the other Ivy League schools do not. Dartmouth changed its policy after eight years of going the previous route.
“All of a sudden, international students became coveted in our athletic department because there’s a limited number of spots for them,” said Fowler, whose lone foreign player is from Canada. “We were finding (international) kids every other year and now that’s going to be more challenging, but it’s not going to hurt us as much as it will the (ice) hockey and tennis teams.”
Regardless of its roster composition, Dartmouth needs to raise its competitiveness in nonconference games against Vermont and Sacred Heart before visiting perennial power Princeton to open the Ivy season on Sept. 24.
“When we make smarter decisions, we can play at a good pace,” Fowler said. “We did not help ourselves today.”
Notes: Pacific’s players wear GPS trackers during games and Smith said they cover as many as 500 feet per minute. Rare, however, is the Tiger who plays more than half a game. “You’re working twice as hard for fewer minutes than you did before,” the coach said. … Fowler didn’t identify her two suspended players but didn’t sound pleased with the process that ousted them. “Sometimes it just depends who’s in the judicial affairs hearing, and we have to suffer the consequences,” she said. “It wasn’t a huge academic issue or anything those two won’t learn from, but we’re out a reserve back and starting center forward.” … Dartmouth’s losses included a two-goal setback to No. 9 Albany in it season opener. … Fowler’s wife, Emily Rinde-Thorson, attended the game with their two young children. Rinde-Thorson is the sixth-year field hockey coach at Colby-Sawyer College, where she also coaches women’s lacrosse. The field hockey Chargers are 4-1 and have improved their record each of the past four seasons. … The official box score listed attendance as 209 and the weather as “sunny … but not really hot.”
Tris Wykes can be reached at twykes@vnews.com or 603-727-3227.