STANDISH, Maine – Top-seeded Saint Joseph's College (14-2, 6-0 GNAC) will host #4 Anna Maria College (12-8, 3-3 GNAC) in a Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC) Field Hockey Tournament Semifinal match at 2:00 PM on Wednesday at Mercy Field.
Both teams are vying for an opportunity to challenge for the first-ever GNAC Field Hockey Championship, a contest that will be hosted by the highest remaining seed on Saturday. The GNAC began sponsoring field hockey this fall and the winner of the conference title match earns an automatic berth into the NCAA DIII National Tournament, which begins on Friday, November 14th.
How they got here:
As the #1 seed, Saint Joseph's earned a first-round bye in the six-team tourney. The Monks laid claim to the top seed by defeating Simmons College, 2-1 in overtime, in a battle of undefeated conference teams on Saturday, October 25th. Saint Joseph's is currently ranked as the #6 team in the New England East Region Poll and is fifth nationally in goals against average. (0.80)
Anna Maria, which won the New England Collegiate Conference (NECC) and fell to Tufts University, 5-0, in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament last season, cruised past #5 Lasell College, 3-0, in a GNAC quarterfinal at home on Saturday. The AMCATS received goals from Kayla Lapierre (Worcester, Mass.), Jacqueline Lapierre (Worcester, Mass.) and Kaitlyn Morgan (Leicester, Mass.) while junior keeper Mary Kate Breen (Londonderry, N.H.) tallied a pair of stops in the shutout victory.
Who to watch – Saint Joseph's
With six individuals netting at least 10 points this fall, the Monks feature one of the most balanced offensive attacks in the conference. Junior Kelsey Dumond (Lewiston, Maine) leads the team with 27 points (9G, 9A) while senior Effie Drew (Portland, Maine) and freshman Bailey Cutler (Lisbon Falls, Maine) have identical stat lines with 11 goals and three assists for 25 points apiece.
Senior Theresa Hendrix (Scarborough, Maine/Cheverus) paces the Royal Blue with 11 assists and has potted six goals for 23 total points while junior Amanda Celata (Dedham, Mass.), the most recent GNAC Player of the Week honoree, has 16 points (6G, 4A) and freshman Hayley Winslow (Falmouth, Maine) rounds out the Monks' top scorers with 11 points (5G, 1A) this fall.
Sophomore goalkeeper Emma Astbury (Bridgewater, Vt.) owns a GNAC-best 0.85 goals against average with 13 goals allowed in 1,064 minutes between the pipes. The November 3rd GNAC Goalkeeper of the Week, Astbury made a career-high eight saves in a 2-1 win over Plymouth State University last Tuesday and enters the tourney playing her best field hockey of the season.
Who to watch – Anna Maria:
The AMCATS feature two of the top three scorers in the conference, including junior Kylie Dalbec (Portland, Maine), who leads the GNAC in goals (20) and points (45) this fall, and senior Nichole Lowe (Saugus, Mass.), who is currently third in the league with 35 points (13G, 9A). Kayla Lapierre (7G, 7A) and Moran (4G, 3A) round out the leading scorers for Anna Maria.
Breen has been solid in the cage for the AMCATS this fall and sports a 1.59 goals against average with a .764 save percentage in 19 starts as a junior. Anna Maria also leads the GNAC with 11 defensive saves this year, as sophomore Emily Strandring (Worcester, Mass.) has four stops and junior Amanda Hebert (South Deerfield, Mass.) has three on the season.
Attitude reflects leadership:
Head Coach Rupert Lewis is in the midst of his 10th season at the helm for Saint Joseph's and ranks as the winningest (114-66) and most successful (.633) skipper in program history. With a coaching philosophy based on stout defensive play and a balanced offensive attack, Lewis has built a program that routinely competes for a conference title. In six seasons as a member of the North Atlantic Conference (NAC), Lewis led his Monks to a pair of regular-season titles with four NAC Championship runner-up efforts.
Now in her third stint as the AMCATS' leader, 12th-year Head Coach Sharon Zenevitch guided her alma mater's field hockey program from 1988-92 and 2000-04 before rejoining the program in the fall of 2011. She has led the AMCATS to three-consecutive double-digit victory seasons, with NECC titles in each of the last two seasons, as well as the program's only NCAA Tournament appearance (and Anna Maria's first national tourney berth since 1996) last year. Zenevitch was selected as the NECC Coach of the Year following each of the last three seasons and owns an 87-108-4 (.446) record as the AMCATS' skipper.
The last time we met:
Earlier this season, Saint Joseph's edged Anna Maria, 2-1, in contest played on October 4th in Paxton, Massachusetts. In a tightly-contested matchup, the Monks secured an early lead on a Winslow score in the 14th minute only to see the slim cushion vanish barely two minutes later when Dalbec potted her 13th marker of the year.
The 1-1 deadlock remained until the 54:56 mark when Cutler scored off a Hendrix pass to ultimately propel the Royal Blue to an important conference triumph. Astbury played well in goal with five saves while Breen totaled seven stops in a losing effort. Saint Joseph's owned advantages in shots (14) and penalty corners (10-2) en route to the one-goal win.
Historically speaking:
Saint Joseph's is 10-2 in the history of the matchup with Anna Maria and has defeated the AMCATS in eight-consecutive meetings dating back to the 2005 campaign, which was Coach Lewis' first as the Monks' clipboard carrier. Overall, Saint Joseph's has outscored Anna Maria by a collective 39-14 score during the 12 contests.
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Saint Joseph's College is Maine's only Catholic liberal arts college, providing a supportive, personalized and career-focused education for more than 100 years. From its 430-acre campus on the shores of Sebago Lake, the College offers more than 40 undergraduate programs to a population of approximately 1,000 students. Saint Joseph's College Online provides certificates, undergraduate and advanced degrees for working adults through an online learning program. For more, visit www.sjcme.edu.
