This site has seen a lot over the last third of a century covering the sport. Some of what we have seen have fallen into distinct patterns and trends that we have codified into some unofficial laws of field hockey.
Yet another event happened yesterday in the NCAA Division II semifinals that may make part of a Tenth Law sometime in the future. This involves goalies, and that can go for both field hockey and lacrosse.
Yesterday in Seattle, Shippensburg took a 2-0 lead over PSAC rival West Chester University, and then saw the Golden Rams fire shot after shot on Ship’s goal cage. The official scoresheet totaled up 42 shots at goal with 26 of them on frame.
Yet, Ship was able to win its way into the national semifinal with a 4-2 victory. The goalkeeper for that game was sophomore Lindsay Tripodo, who played her scholastic hockey with a pretty good program called Voorhees Eastern (N.J.).
Now, as we opined a few years ago in our video story The Eastern Wall, we’ve often seen goalies for great programs such as the University of North Carolina, Emmaus, Watertown, Eastern, and The College of New Jersey. These keepers often go two or three games without seeing a shot on goal.
But the work these goalkeepers do are not on game days. Think of it: what kind of shot attempts did Tripodo see in practice from players like Kara and Ryleigh Heck?
I guess that’s why, for a 20-year stretch, the goalkeeping position for the United States always seemed to be occupied by a University of North Carolina graduate, whether it was Peggy Storrar, Jana Withrow, Amy Tran-Swensen, or Jackie Kintzer-Briggs. These goalies had to take the best shot attempts from star forwards and midfielders every day in practice, then carried over that muscle memory to game days.
Such is what happened to Tripodo yesterday. She looked like she was anticipating what the West Chester attackers were doing on every attack foray, and made 24 stops against a hungry Rams offense.
But time ran out on West Chester, sending Shippensburg into the final against another PSAC team, East Stroudsburg.
TopOfTheCircle.com 
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