The Hawks worked steadily against the Penn defense. After a deflection, Saint Joseph's forward Marisa Pizzi found herself open with the ball. She buried her shot in the back of the net and scored what proved to be their game-winning goal.
Or did she?
Quakers coach Val Cloud didn't think so. From the sidelines, she thought the ball had not stopped moving before Pizzi slapped it past goalkeeper Alanna Butera. Field hockey rules stipulate that scoring off of such a moving ball is illegal.
"I didn't like it, but she made the call," Cloud said. "She's a good ref, but I question her judgment. I know we'll get some [calls] down the road, but it hurts when it ends up being the winning goal."
The goal didn't seem like a huge mountain to climb at the time. The score was 2-1 Hawks, but there were still over 16 minutes to go in the first half - but neither team scored again.
"You know what, you can get bad calls and you can get good calls," said Cloud, whose team drops to 0-3 on the year.
But when they come early, and in a loss, some bad calls can hurt far more than others.
