Due to a complete turnaround this season, led by first-year IU Coach Amanda Janney, Hoosier field hockey is a prominent contender in the Big Ten once again. To find where the success comes from, look no further than the team’s hard-working seniors who used Janney’s on-field philosophies and watched the positive results trickle down as a result.
“Just to be at the very beginning of this and to be a senior, to know that the girls behind me are going to experience this for the rest of their careers, I’m very jealous,” senior defender Sydney Supica said. “Also, at the same time I’m very happy that I could be at the start of this.”
IU (8-9, 4-3) will play Rutgers (7-9, 0-7) in pursuit of its fifth conference victory of the season after tying the all-time program record of four conference wins in a season, which was last done in 2009. The matchup against the Scarlet Knights will be the regular season finale for the Hoosiers, marking senior day.
Supica and fellow senior forwards Nicole Volgraf, Rachel Stauffer and Karen Lorite will be recognized as their Hoosier careers dwindle down. These four play a key part on the field and their knowledge and leadership have been instrumental in the success of the team this year.
“They’ve been great leaders by example both on and off the field and also just with the intangibles of leadership and experience,” Janney said. “It’s really clear where they’ve been and what they’ve been through in terms of not getting as many Big Ten wins in the past, they’ve been able to bring experiences they’ve had in the past and inspired us to do our very best this year.”
Rutgers enters its final Big Ten contest with a winless conference record. Rutgers was able to snap a four-game losing streak while earning its first road win of the season by defeating American University, 2-1, in its last game. IU dropped its last game to American in double overtime.
After dropping two overtime matchups on the road without top goal-scorer sophomore Maddie Latino, IU is back in the comfort of its own home, a place where it has won five of the last six games with one loss against No. 1 Syracuse.
Latino is recovering from a foot injury, and Janney said she is anxious to get her top goal scorer back into the lineup this weekend.
“Maddie suffered a little injury a couple weeks ago so we’ve been resting her,” Janney said. “It was unfortunate to play Maryland without her because she’s been such a dynamic scorer for us, but she’s back to practice this week and we expect her to do well this weekend.”
This will be the final tune-up prior to the conference tournament next weekend that the Hoosiers will play host in. Team members said they feel confident they can take the home success and turn it into a deep tournament run.
“We get to practice on this field every single day so having the tournament here is going to be huge,” Volgraf said. “I just think it’s fun. We definitely have an advantage, and I hope we can use that and really have a fun time.”
