Fairfield’s magical season ends with overtime loss to UConn

STORRS — Aided by what she called two “worldclass finishes” that keyed her team’s come from behind victory, UConn field hockey coach Nancy Stevens was able to celebrate her 700th career coaching win.

No. 700 didn’t come easily as visiting Fairfield, fresh off the first NCAA tournament win in program history, led early in the fourth quarter before the secondranked Huskies rallied for the 21 overtime victory on Friday.

Julianna Kratz, who nearly opened the scoring in the first half when she found herself alone with UConn goalie Cheyenne Sprecher, gave the Stags the lead in the third quarter when she netted her seventh goal of the season. The lead held up until the early stages of the fourth period when a rare Fairfield turnover allowed the Huskies to get the ball ahead to their leading scorer. Svea Boker made no mistake, lifting a shot over Fairfield goalie Zoe Rosen to tie the game at 1 with 10:54 left in regulation.

“It was a good pass, there weren’t that many players in front of me, so I had a lot of shooting space and I’ll shot it for now because we hadn’t generated that many shots,” Boker said.

Just 50 seconds into overtime, Sophie Hamilton slipped a shot past Rosen to give UConn the win.

“We took the No. 2 team in the country and made them work for it in overtime which we felt comfortable with,” Fairfield coach Jackie Kane said. “It was unfortunate we didn’t play a little longer in overtime but I am really proud of this team.”

Fairfield’s defense kept UConn bottled up for most of the game. The Huskies failed to score on eight penalty corners although Claire Jandewerth did hit the crossbar with a rising shot in the first half. UConn outshot Fairfield 142 but were kept mostly on the outside by the Fairfield defense.

“This is our second year (together) we all know each other so well, everybody has each other’s back,” Fairfield junior defender Kelly Buckley said. “We have the same unit next year, we aren’t losing one and gaining five so our unit is looking pretty good.”

As Buckley mentioned, the Stags will return the entire roster after setting program records with 18 victories and 11 wins in a row this season. Fairfield (183) was 110 in onegoal games this season before Friday’s loss.

“It was the cohesiveness and camaraderie that they have, they really like each other on and off the field which makes a huge difference,” Kane said.

Stevens improved to 70018824 in 40 seasons as the head coach, first at Northwestern and the last 29 at UConn. She was quick to credit her assistant coaches and players for reaching that milestone.

“It is a big number in our sport because we don’t play that many games a year,” Stevens said. “I gave (assistant coaches) Paul (Caddy) and Cheri (Schulz) each a big hug after the game because they have been a part of almost half of those wins. The 20 years here as my assistants, they deserve a lot of credit. Certainly, a lot of talent. Our players over the years are the ones who have brought us those wins. This has been a great place to coach.”

UConn (193) will face either Princeton or Syracuse on Sunday in the quarterfinals.