Field hockey cruises by Drexel as Friebe continues to impress

For the field hockey team, the first two games of the season could accurately be described as 'The Ilvy Friebe Show." The junior attack hailing from Germany had scored five of No. 5 Princeton's nine goals and 10 of its 21 points, while taking 14 of 42 total shots.

Drexel (3-3) came to 1952 Stad-ium last night seeking to contain Friebe and hand the Tigers their first loss of the season. The Dragons failed on both counts, as Friebe had a hat trick to lead Princeton (3-0) to a 4-0 romp.

Friebe provided most of the scoring for the Tigers but was not without help from her teammates. Two of her three goals came on rebounds after other Princeton attackers had taken shots, and sophomore attack Claire Miller threaded Friebe a beautiful pass on her other score.

"[Friebe's] a great attack player. The U.S. Team wants her, but she wants to play here," Bozman said.

Friebe scored her first goal, with the assist going to Miller, about eight minutes into the game. Before the Tiger goal, Drexel had been challenging junior goalie Kelly Baril with some decent shots and it looked as if the Dragons could hang with Princeton. Baril had to make a couple of saves that required her to fully extend her body and come out of the goal. But after Friebe scored, Drexel went on the defensive for most of the rest of the game.

Freshman attack Natalie Martirosian showed her potential later in the first half by juking a Dragon defender with adroit stick-handling, drawing plaudits from the crowd. After getting past the defender, however, she could not manage to convert the scoring opportunity.

Princeton came out stronger in the second half on both sides of the ball and continued to dominate the contest.

"Drexel had a good gameplan for us — sitting back and letting us come to them because they couldn't match our speed," Bozman said. "We should have read that better, but in the second half we stretched the field."

The Tigers did manage a number of breakaways in the second stanza and scored both of their goals on them. Friebe was the person to eventually put in the ball in the net both times, but other Princeton attackers took the first shots and led the breakaways.

Shortly after Friebe's third goal of the game, Bozman pulled both the attack and Baril, giving others the opportunity to show what they could do on the field. Princeton failed to score but played well nonetheless, largely due to the efforts of a number of freshmen.

"There's no real class differentiation on this team," Bozman said. "The freshmen have stepped up like seasoned veterans."