READING, Pa. – The Albright field hockey team (5-7, 1-1 MAC Commonwealth) played host to Widener University (5-7, 1-1 MAC Commonwealth) on Tuesday evening (Oct. 11) in a Middle Atlantic Conference (MAC) Commonwealth showdown. Lamya Mejias scored on a penalty stroke for Albright to pick up a huge 1-0 victory over Widener at home.

"I'm really proud of the way our team came out and fought for 60 minutes today. It wasn't always pretty hockey, but we backed each other up and we played as a team. We were gritty and got the job done," said an ecstatic Coach Co (Catherine Wiese (Ostoich) after tonight's thrilling 1-0 victory.

Tonight's win is the third straight for Albright over Widener dating back to last season including last years playoff win over the Pride. Tonight's win is a huge step forward to make a return trip to the MAC Commonwealth playoffs for the Lions field hockey team.

The first half was played primarily in the Albright offensive zone. The Lions came out strong and never looked back. In the first half, Albright earned nine penalty corners and fired off eight shots in a relentless attack from the offense.

The game remained scoreless at halftime, but the growing sense was Albright was going to find the back of net one way or another.  

In the third period, the Lions were on the attack and earned a penalty stroke.

Lamya Mejias was cool, calm and collected stepping up to take the penalty corner and rocketed a shot past the Widener goalie putting the Lions on top 1-0.

Over the final period and a half, Widener had a couple chances but nothing that the Albright defense could not handle seeing the Lions to a 1-0 home victory. Coach Co would go on to say this about her defenses performance, "I think V (Veronica Heckman) played a really good game and made some incredible saves to keep us in the lead. Same goes to our defensive corner unit! We will celebrate this first conference win today and then look to prepare for the next one tomorrow."

Veronica Heckman was fantastic in goal tonight making five saves while picking up her fourth shutout of the season.

As a team the Lions finished with 14 total shots placing nine of them on goal. Mejias, Chelsea Johnson and Morgan Kopcik were on the attack all night long each recording three shots in the game.

Olivia Lorah, Keliah Santiago, Laurel Gingrich and Jacey Petruno all tallied one shot for the Lions this evening.  
 

Up Next:
The Lions field hockey team will head to cross town rival Alvernia for an evening game against the Golden Wolves on Saturday, October 14. The MAC Commonwealth showdown will begin at 8 p.m.