April Cornell was appointed the fifth head field hockey coach in history for Colgate in December of 2016. Although this was her first head coaching assignment she is not a neophyte to the coaching ranks. She is a 14 year coaching veteran having spent 11 seasons at Hofstra. She was promoted to Associate Head Coach in 2010. Cornell also had a one year stint with New Hampshire.
Cornell played her field hockey at Connecticut. She was a four year letter winner and was a co-captain during her senior year. During her career at UConn, the Huskies were nationally ranked, and made four NCAA appearances and four Big East tournament appearances. She is a native of central New York.
Colgate was 4-13 in her initial season at the helm which includes a 2-3 overtime loss to Lafayette. The Raiders only scored 17 goals to 47 against during the whole season. They took an average of 9.6 shots per game while giving up 18.6. They only had 71 penalty corners. Their shot percentage was slightly more than 10 pct.
Clearly they need stronger offensive production. They lost two of their top three scorer while Iona MacKillop, a Junior forward from Glasgow Scotland will return. Cornell has bolstered her ranks with 7 freshman, and returns 10 sophomores from a huge freshman class last year. There are five juniors back on the field and no seniors. This still a very young team.
The Leopards will make the trek to Hamilton New York and will play a noon game on Oct 6. By then, Colgate will have their legs and Hamilton has always been a tough place to play. Cornell has scheduled 10 home games in her 18 game schedule. Three of those games will be part of an early season round robin on August 24,26, ad 27th with Central Michigan, LIU Brooklyn, and Saint Louis. Their toughest games remain to be Albany, Lock Haven, Vermont and Rider, and their Patriot League Schedule.
The week before Lafayette comes to town, Holy Cross will be in Hamilton, as these meetings are MUST win games for all 3 participants.
Lafayette College Field Hockey 