Heidi for Three…It’s Good!
Midfielder Heidi Fieselmann '06 started her senior season off with a bang, tallying her first career hat trick in a 5-2 Swarthmore win over Neumann College at Clothier Field on Thursday afternoon.
Charlotte MacAusland '06 got the scoring underway in the second minute of the game, re-directing a blast from Fieselman into the right corner of the cage at the 1:48 mark.
Fieselmann pushed the lead to 2-0 with her first goal of the season at the 4:21 mark. Both teams went back and forth for much of the first half before the flood gates opened and more goals filled the scoreboard.
Fieselmann extended the Swarthmore (1-0) lead to 3-0 with her second goal of the game at 21:31, only to see Neumann answer back with two goals of their own in a span of two minutes.
Junior forward Rachel Mease finished off a pass from midfielder Chantelle Knuttel at 23:31, and sophomore Gabriele Bendistis followed with her own goal off a feed from Mease to cut the Garnet lead to 3-2 with just under ten minutes left in the half.
Swarthmore kept Neumann off the board for the remainder of the half, heading into the intermission with a the 3-2 advantage.
Fieselmann got the Garnet train rolling again at the start of the second half, completing her hat trick with a goal at the 37:18 mark. Midfielder Lindsay Roth '07 added an insurance goal at the 53:20 mark to give Swarthmore the final 5-2 margin of victory.
Karen Lorang '07 played the first half and made four saves, while classmate Melissa LaVan took over in the second half and recorded one save. Chelsea Ward made 11 saves in goal for the Knights (0-1).
The opening day victory is the fourth consecutive for the Garnet, dating back to a 1-0 win over Widener in 2002.
Roth was the last Garnet player to tally a hat-trick, accomplishing the feat on Sept. 4, 2004 in a 7-1 Swarthmore win over Goucher.
For their next contest, Swarthmore travels to Villa Julie on Saturday, Sept. 3 for a 12:00 p.m. contest.