The Triangle

Issue date: 11/6/09 Section: Sports

Media Credit: Olivia Garrity

Why should you come out this weekend and support the Drexel field hockey team?

Simple: because they're on the verge of making history.

The 10th-ranked Dragons have already amassed a program-record 17 victories, earned homefield advantage throughout the Colonial Athletic Association Championships and stand just two wins away from capturing the second-ever CAA title in Drexel history.

They've lost just two games all season, while steamrolling through the conference (7-1).

"Upsets" over Duke in overtime at Buckley Field Sept. 5 and Old Dominion Sept. 16 on the road in Norfolk, Va. were crucial. In fact, the Dragons will step onto the field for their semifinal game against Hofstra Nov. 7 with the eighth best RPI in the country.

But what does that all mean?

It means that if in fact Drexel were to lose in the CAA Championships, it would still likely have done enough to garner an at-large bid into the NCAA Tournament.

Hopefully, the Dragons don't rest on those laurels.

After all, it's never a good idea to rest your fate in someone else's hands.

Doubtful that head coach Denise Zelenak would let that happen. She's brought this program prestige and prominence, not to mention 33 victories since 2008.

Doubtful that senior leaders like Susan Ciufo, Carolina Gibernau and Jen Cairone would allow that to occur.

Neither would the team's leading scorer junior Christina Mastropaolo.

Mastropaolo's 27 goals are third in the nation.

Unfortunately, it still could.

NCAA selection committees have shafted us before-and it could happen again, just as it did to the 2006-07 men's basketball team.

23 victories. Not enough.

Stunning road wins over Villanova and Syracuse. Not enough.

Any other year that résumé is probably good enough. Not in 2006-07.

The moral of the story: take care of business; don't leave anything to chance-or a room full of pundits that couldn't give two bleeps about Drexel.

All the Dragons really have to do is dig into the archives and pull out game tape of the 2008-09 women's basketball team's monumental run through the CAA Tournament.

Now that's a team that came through in the clutch.

Its stars played like stars. Its role players rose to the occasion.

If the field hockey team can replicate that formula, the Dragons will be popping champagne-or at least a legal bubbly replica-like the Yankees did when it's all said and done.

The hideous Drexel shaft that symbolizes red tape, dismay and utter disgust will meet its demise Nov. 8.

Let's just hope the field hockey team doesn't find itself in that pile of rubble-at least until after the first round of the NCAA Tournament ends.

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