Galloway, NJ… The College of New Jersey field hockey team clinched a home game in the opening round of the New Jersey Athletic Conference Tournament with a 6-0 win over Stockton University Tuesday night. The fourth-ranked Lions (11-2, 5-0 NJAC) have now won 25 consecutive regular season conference games. The Ospreys (9-6, 1-3 NJAC) are currently in fifth place in the conference. The top four teams qualify for the conference tournament.
 
TCNJ got on the board within the first seven minutes. Kayla Peterson (Cream Ridge, NJ/Allentown) took the corner insert from Taylor Barrett (Neshanic Station, NJ/Hunterdon Central) and beat the Osprey goalie for a 1-0 lead.
 
Tori Tiefenthaler (Freehold, NJ/Biotechnology/Freehold Borough) put on a clinic for the remainder of the first half. Just over a minute after Peterson scored, Tiefenthaler found a loose ball and lifted a wrist shot into the back of the cage to extend the lead. In the last ten minutes of the opening frame, Elizabeth Morrison (Stonington, CT/Stonington) found Tiefenthaler for her second of the game. Minutes later Tiefenthaler completed the natural hat trick, the first of her career, off a feed from Sidney Padilla (Suffern, NY/Suffern).
 
Morrison would score a goal of her own to put TCNJ up 5-0 going into the break.
 
Cayla Andrews (Hackettstown, NJ/Hackettstown) produced the final score lifting a goal over a prone goalie on a rebound of her own shot.
 
Goalies Christina Fabiano (Wayne, NJ/Wayne Hills) and Madison Beaumont (Oxford, NJ/Belvidere) combined for the shutout, the teams seventh of the season. Fabiano made five saves and Beaumont made a pair of stops.
 
TCNJ out-shot Stockton 20-9.
 
The Lions return home to face 13^th-ranked Kean University Saturday. The Cougars and Lions are the top two teams in the conference standings. The game will cap the athletics triple-header as part of the Homecoming celebration on the campus. Game time is at 7:00 PM.