For the seniors of the field hockey team, this was a finale four years in the making.
Katarina Angus ’17.5, Brooke Bonfiglio ’17, Lucy Green ’17, Leah Zavalick ’17 and Herald arts and culture editor Jaclyn Torres ’17 have encapsulated Bruno’s potential over the course of their careers. The seniors beat then-No. 14 Louisville and crosstown rival Providence in consecutive years before starting Ivy League play 3-0 this year for the second time in their careers — among a list of other impressive accolades.
For the seniors’ first three years, Bruno ended its season with a loss to the Elis, but that was not the case this time around. The Bears endured a two-goal deficit at the end of the first half before scoring three second-half goals — coming from three of the team’s seniors — to take a dramatic win.
The seniors “went into the game with the idea that we had nothing to lose and that we wanted to put everything that we had on the field,” Torres said. “Over the course of the season, (Head Coach Jill Reeve) wanted us to shoot more than we had been, and the seniors took the reins in our final game.”
Yale got on the scoreboard first after Allie Carrigan scored her sixth goal of the season 14 minutes into the game, finishing a rebound from short range. Carol Middough tallied her 10th goal of the season 10 minutes later off a corner, doubling the Elis’ lead.
But Brown got a goal back thanks to Torres, who scored a breakaway that resulted from an Ali Dunning ’20 pass that set Torres free on the right side. The senior more than doubled her career total this year, breaking out for eight goals after accruing five in her first three years.
Danee Fitzgerald spoiled Brown’s first-half efforts with a goal just over a minute later, finishing off a rebound after a save by Katie Hammaker ’19. The half ended with Yale up 3-1, the fifth-straight game in which the Bears entered the second half facing a deficit.
“We’d been in this situation before; we’d been a couple goals down in the past,” Torres said. “At the half, Reeve said, ‘Never doubt for a second that you’re in this game.’”
But the seniors started to flip the script early in the second half, as Angus — who plays for the Canadian national team in the collegiate offseason — cut Yale’s lead in half with a goal off Brown’s fifth corner of the game. Dunning and Zavalick, a defensive standout, provided the assist, which was the senior’s first point of the season.
It was neither Torres nor Angus who provided the heroics, but Green: The senior midfielder had quietly scored five goals already this season — tied for second-best on the team — and added her sixth goal 13 minutes into the second half to tie the contest at three.
With about eight minutes to go, Green scored her second goal of the game, seventh of the season, last of the game and last of her career — a shot from an Ellie Seid ’19 cross from the left side that found the back board to put Brown up once and for all, 4-3. Despite being outshot 11-7 in the first half, the Bears were able to muster 11 attempts at a goal in the second half to the Elis’ three — a second-half effort that resulted in their first two-goal comeback win since a 2013 game against Colgate. In that game, an impressive first-year named Katarina Angus scored Brown’s second goal in that 4-3 win; in the final game of her career, she did the same to help bring home a win.
