Ewing, NJ…Junior Lindsey Hatch (Sewell, NJ/Washington Twp.) scored a hat trick as The College of New Jersey field hockey team stormed its way past Rowan University 6-1 on Wednesday in the semifinals of the New Jersey Athletic Conference.
 
The win puts the second-seeded Lions (16-3) into the conference title game on Saturday, November 9 at top-seeded Montclair State University (19-1). That game will be played at 1 p.m. Montclair earned its spot in the finals with a 3-0 win over Richard Stockton College.
 
TCNJ enters that game ranked ninth, while the Red Hawks are the top-ranked team in Division III. The teams met on October 11 in Montclair, with the hosts coming away with a narrow 2-1 win.
 
This marks the third trip to the finals for the Lions in the last four years, including a 2-0 triumph over the Red Hawks in 2001. TCNJ has also won the conference in five of the last seven years.
 
Hatch helped the Lions overcome an early 1-0 deficit pulling TCNJ even and then tacked two more goals in the second half as the hosts pulled away. Those three goals give her a team-leading 21 on the season.
 
There was plenty of scoring in the first half with the Profs getting on the board first with 8:37 expired. Sophomore Johanna James (Gloucester City, NJ/Gloucester) scored off of a scramble in front for her 11^th of the season.
 
TCNJ stormed back with three goals in a span of 5:26. Hatch started that flurry banging in a rebound and 4:16 later junior Erin Healy (Spring Lake Heights, NJ/Manasquan) followed up her own shot and put home the rebound giving the Lions their first lead of the game. That extended her goal-scoring streak to five games. Junior Victoria Martin (Clark, NJ/Arthur L. Johnson) then made it a two-goal difference 1:10 later when she collected a blocked shot and fired it into the Rowan net.
 
The Lions carried that 3-1 lead into the second half and then added to it with Hatch making it 4-1 just over a minute into the period. Junior defender Marissa Pennypacker (Mullica Hill, NJ/Clearview) netted TCNJ's fifth goal on a short pass from freshman Danielle Andreula (New Egypt, NJ/New Egypt) before Hatch completed the hat trick and scoring with 13:53 left.
 
Junior Amanda Krause (Richboro, PA/Council Rock North) collected her 15^th win of the season, making four saves.
 
In goal for the Profs, Steph Colombo (Moorestown, NJ/Camden Catholic) picked up eight saves, while Erika Mecchella (Gloucester, NJ/Gloucester) had a defensive save.