The Wittenberg field hockey team battled all season, and while the Tigers' three-year run atop the North Coast Athletic Conference came to an end in 2005, a lot of positives can be found.
The Tigers capped the season with a 2-1 loss at Wooster in the NCAC Tournament semifinals on Wednesday. In the four-year history of the four-team NCAC Tournament, the Tigers had never played a game away from home and they had never lost. But that all changed with the defeat at Wooster, which tied with Wittenberg for second place in the regular season standings but earned the right to host the semifinal game on tiebreaker criteria.
The Tigers ended the campaign with a 10-8 overall record and a mark of 8-4 in the NCAC, one game behind Oberlin. Ironically, Wittenberg swept the two meetings with the Yeowomen, but the Tigers suffered a costly season sweep at the end hands of fourth-place Denison.
Three players finished in double figures for scoring in the season - junior forward Katy Barrett (Powell, Ohio/Watterson) with 23, including a team-best 11 goals, junior defender Holly McHugh (Randolph, NJ/Randolph) with 16 and senior Julia Wickham (Columbus, Ohio/Grandview) with 13. Barrett had four game-winning scores and McHugh finished with three.
Defensively, the Tigers were up and down, recording five shutouts but also allowing their opponents a whopping 281 shots in 18 games. Sophomore goalkeeper Nicole Irvin (Gettysburg, Pa./Littlestown) recorded 29 saves, one short of the NCAC record and eight shy of the school record, in a regular season-ending win at Oberlin on Oct. 29, and she finished the season with an outstanding saves percentage of .874.