Garden City, N.Y. - After two goals from Krista Dietz, the Adelphi University field hockey team fell to Pace University on Wednesday evening in its first conference game at Motamed Field, by a final score of 2-1.

Unlike the last couple of contests, neither team was able to generate shot opportunities through the first five minutes. The Brown and Gold were able to generate a few on net, but the Setter's Celeste Pagliaroli was able to stop them before they caused trouble. 

With under five minutes to play in the period, reigning NFHCA East Region Player of the Year Dietz shot home her sixth of the season to give the Blue and Gold their initial lead. Laying the shots on afterward for an additional four, the Panthers were able to keep the score where it was heading into the next set of 15. 

Adelphi looked to flip the script in the following frame, getting the first four shots off themselves. About midway through, Emiline Biggin took a feed from Ali Nagy's penalty corner, which Nagy then tipped in after running into the pile of bodies to even up the score at one. Despite a few more shot attempts from Amanda Lee and Jillian Riche, the score remained knotted up at the break. 

The third frame saw more of the same slow-paced action, with only two combined shots through the first eight minutes. It was Dietz once more however a little past that mark, turning around after a corner pass from Katelyn Fairhurst to give the Setters another lead. 

A couple more shots were taken for the 'Cats, including a bullet from Lana Mignon de Wet that got stopped short of Pagliaroli, keeping the score the same as the fourth began.

Penalty corners were the name of the game in the final quarter, with the Brown and Gold getting an astounding six to Pace's zero. To add to that number was an additional five shots, only one of which made its way to the net for Pagliaroli to stop. In the final 15 seconds, Nagy was able to enter two more corners, but de Wet was denied both times at the top of the circle. The buzzer then sounded under the lights, and the Setters had earned their first conference win of 2024. 

Head Coach Jess Mulhern and Adelphi will be back in action on Saturday, Sept. 28 when they take on No. 7 Southern New Hampshire University in their annual "Tunnel to Towers" Game. Action is scheduled to get underway from Motamed Field at 3:30 p.m.