Holy Cross will be graduating five seniors this spring but none more important that Marcia LaPlante their excellent goalkeeper. Coach Lindsey Jackson seems to have a strategy to go to very successful programs to pick recruits that know how to win. To do that there are reported commitments from Maryland, New Jersey and Massachusetts. She will also need to improve her goal production since they only scored 29 goals last season. The Crusaders have not yer reported their NLI signings yet, which indicates to me there may be more coming. There big goal scorer is junior Micke Kooman from the Netherlands who scored 1/3 of the goals all season. Jackson has tabbed another GK who hails from the  Boston area which means she again will carry three GK.

Ryleigh McComas

Ryleigh hails from the very successful Garrison Forest School in Maryland and also played for the Freedom Hockey Club. Garrison plays a very tough schedule even going out of state from time to time. They always seem to be in the hunt for the IAAM championship which they won this past season. They were ranked 24 in the nation by Max and 4th regionally.

Aside from Field Hockey Ryleigh runs the 800 meter in track during the spring. But Field Hockey is where she excels. The midfielder was the team captain of these champs, and was second team all metro selected by the Baltimore Sun. She started every game for Garrison.

Haley Davis

Haley is another midfield defender from Maryland. She was first team all conference and a Maryland all state selectiion. She will graduate this spring Severn High School and played for the Sparks Field Hockey Club. She is a two sport athlete playing Lacrosse as well.

Brooke Ross

Brook will be a freshman Goalkeeper. She went to Winchester High School in the Boston area. She was also Captain of her team and a League all star. She highly competitive and has play field hockey even before high school. She says she likes the GK position because she likes to be in middle of important plays.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kylie Hampton

Kylie is a New Jersey native who played for the Oak Knoll School, another very successful  program. She hails from Summit New Jersey and will be a midfielder or defender at Holy  Cross. I was unable to find more stats on her but I am sure the coaching staff in Worchester will be providing details soon

 

 

 

Simon Hoskins, Executive Director of US Field Hockey sent a Christmas message of his own to the field hockey community, by announcing the appointment of a new Head Coach for the US Women’s Team. Caroline Nelson-Nichols, currently the Head Coach at Columbia University was appointed after an international search. The US team is about to begin their second year in the FIH Hockey Pro League in about a month. The first game will be against the Netherlands and will be played at UNC!

Nelson is a former USWNT athlete and two time Olympian and has been the Columbia Coach since 2015. Prior to that she was an assistant at the University of Iowa. She has been serving on the BOT of US Field Hockey and will step down to fulfill her new responsibilities. She has been active in the futures program and currently holds a Level 2 accreditation..

She has earned 165 caps and was a two time Olympian. Nelson was on the National squad from 2007-14. Her olympic experience  was earned in Beijing and London. She had an outstanding career at Old Dominion  from 2003-06 where she was an all American, and an academic all-American. Nelson additionally, was the defensive player of the year in the CAA as well as. player of year. It was the first time anyone received these dual honors.  She is a member of the ODU Hall of Fame.

Columbia will begin a national search for a replacement immeadiately!!

Additional Patriot League News

Patriot League meetings occurred recently, and the subject of video review was on the docket. However, there is no news to announce. I have my fingers crossed, but like most decisions inside the academe, the decision apparatus grinds slowly!!

Bucknell has announced five new recruits and the other Patriot league teams have had new recruits appear on Max Sports. Lafayette still has not announced their new player for 2020, but internet reports have revealed 5 new Leopards so far. Coach Stone usually announces her new class, after the class is complete.

The Patriot League had a number of very young rosters last year, and I expect some will be looking for specific holes to fill. I do not expect the other league teams to have large classes this year. More about that in the new year.

Bottom line is, I expect the Patriot League to be much improved with a number of quality hold over players.

Lisa Van der Geest, the Lafayette senior captain added another award to her growing list of kudos. At this rate her parents will have to hire a private jet to transport all her hardware. She was a first team all league selection, defensive player of the year in the Patriot League, all region, and the Patriot League and Lafayette Scholar Athlete of the year. But perhaps her most coveted skill was enumerated by her coach, Jennifer Stone. ” Most importantly, her leadership on and off the field kept our team focused. She will graduate in the spring as one of the best players to ever come through our program.”

After graduation she has told me she wants to continue to play field hockey. Perhaps we shall hear more about Lisa in the future as as Dutch national  player?.  Meanwhile rumor has it she is a very good tennis player. Could we see her on the courts this spring wearing a Lafayette uniform??

Movement never stops as the Patriot League is reloading, as recruits continue to announce their commitments. Bucknell has recently announced five new recruits. Lafayette typically waits until the class is complete before an announcement but an internet search has identified 5 commitments to next year’s class who I have already identified in a previous post. For the coaches, they continue to beat the bushes for qualified players with the hopes of fielding another team that can challenge for a championship. Replacing this senior class will be difficult.

Returning next year will be a lot of experience and skill. Molly McAndrews a first team PL selection will return for her junior season at forward, Sydney Woolston a defender and only a rising sophomore returns, Kara Tiedtke will be returning from recovering knee surgery, Audrey Sawers is on the under 21 Canadian team and will certainly be a team leader, Sophie Carr, another rising senior will be marking her senior year, Grace Angelella a midfielder will provide an exciting element to a talented senior class, Anna Steps will also be a senior contributor, while Simone Hefting returns for her sophomore encore, perhaps filling in the empty center back position. Haile Abbott will step up in the goal cage. Who can forget her save last year on a penalty stroke in the Patriot League playoffs against Boston University?

The spring will be challenging for coaches and a players alike, as they will be reaching to improve on the 12-7 record this year and hopefully gaining that coveted spot in the NCAA tournament. It will be an interesting spring season!! Needs will include the all important center back position. An improvement in overall team speed will be looked for. The Leopards will also sport several players near or over six feet tall with skill. No doubt the team will be there competing for a tournament spot.

League Coaches Meet In End Of Year Consultations

It is typical for Division One League coaches to meet this time of year to discuss how their respective leagues can improve performance within the division. The Patriot League is no exception. Could video replay be a topic of conversation??  There are ten leagues playing division one field hockey, six are using video referral for regular season games, or championship games. The Patriot League is not one of them.

The NCAA has mandated in order to host a playoff game, video referral must be provided. The coaches will not make a final decision, but it must eventually be brought to League AD’s. Video referral is in effect for basketball and football at the moment in the league.

It is my belief video referral will improve officiating and provide confidence that official calls will not be a determining factor in wins or losses. I hope the league will do the right thing.

US Teams Will See A Change In Leadership

The US team will see a change in coaching and as I understand it has already begun a search. It is 45 days until the pro leagues start and the national team is scheduled to meet  the team from the Netherlands at UNC in January.

Change is always difficult in any organization and especially for athletic teams. The US women’s team did not make this summer’s olympics, having not been successful in various Olympic qualifying events. I have no doubt these women will rise to the challenge to see them in Paris in four years. They are a dedicated and talented group. We are all rooting for you!!

Meanwhile, US Field Hockey has designated an interim coaching team led by Pam Stuper of Yale. I would expect new coaches to be in place before the game with the Netherlands.

It was an emotional celebration of excellence, as  Lafayette athletics celebrated its best and brightest during the 2019 edition of its Hall of Fame Induction. Four individuals were inducted into the Hall of Fame. Dan Bengele ’98, football, Steve Feldman ’79, track and field, Bill Hogarty ’56, baseball and Kim Stone ’00, field hockey. In addition the 1948 football team was honored for its refusal to play in the 1948 Sun Bowl because one teammate, African American David Sowell ’51 would not be allowed to play because of his race.

In addition Lisa van der Geest was honored as the female scholar athlete of the year. It is an award given to the athlete who displays exemplary skills in the classroom and on the field of competition.

Kim Stone was a two sport athlete playing field hockey and lacrosse. She was named an all American in field hockey, In her senior campaign she led the team to a 19-2 record and a berth in the NCAA tournament. The midfielder was a three time all league selection and was honored to be on the all decade  Patriot League squad in field hockey. She was also honored as an all league selection in lacrosse while her team captured 3 Patriot League Crowns.

In an eloquent and emotional speech, like her fellow inductees, she honored her teammates, parents,  sister (coach of the year Jennifer Stone)  and husband . A regular attendee at games this year she also congratulated this year’s team for their outstanding season. She had a special mention for her coach Ann Gold, and her parents for instilling a sense of hard work and spirit.

She and her husband own a design/build construction company called Homestead Design Build Inc.

Lisa van der Geest gets Scholar Athlete of the Year

Lisa delivered her remarks via a recorded video shown to the audience. She was playing in the Senior Division One all star game at Wake Forest at the very moment her award was announced in the Kirby Sports Center. She, like the Hall of Fame nominees, credited her teammates, coaches and family for her success. She mentioned her parents who were present or watched her via streaming video  from her home in the Netherlands or as they traveled several times to see her in person.

She had a 3.75 academic average while garnering all league and and all American honors  during her career. This year she was named defensive player of the year in the Patriot League, while collecting all league honors for the last four years. No doubt her successes and ability will propel her to even greater accomplishments in the future, and perhaps in the Hall of Fame herself.

There have been over 1300 Division One games played to date and the final 18 teams have been selected for the NCAA tournament but come Nov 13, there will begin National Letter of Intent signings providing teams with new players to replace graduating seniors and more. The recruiting process has no doubt been stressful but in reality many pre-NLI  commitments have already been made as long as a year ago.

The NLI is just the end of the process and no doubt head coaches already know what 80-90 percent of their class will look like. Although they are prohibited by NCAA regulations from announcing or disclosing recruit names until after the NLI is signed, recruits themselves, or their clubs have already revealed the plans of these recruits. ( I guess this is another example of NCAA minions discovering useless work for an industry of compliance administrators…but that’s a subject for a whole new article. Coach K from Duke was dinged last week by NCAA for revealing the name of a recruit by him in Chicago. The recruit had announced publicly for months he has committed to Duke).

It is easy enough to find the names of recruits, even in field hockey, through Club news releases or services such has Max Sports. So armed with my trusty computer, without relying on information from any Patriot League school or coach I will as I did last year report on commitments for these League schools. Foreign commitments are more difficult to find and they tend to commit later on in the process.

Lafayette has been hard at work replacing an excellent senior class and as you will see have commitments from Massachusetts to Texas. But I will also be looking at all Patriot League commitments in the coming weeks.

Meanwhile American University will be competing in the opening round of the NCAA tournament. They are playing Fairfield at Fairfield tomorrow and I expect an easy win for the Eagles. They will then return to Conn. on Friday for a much tougher game with UCONN.

American loves to base their offense from their ability to stop the transition game of their opponents and thats what happened today. Lafayette had no corners to American’s four and they were able to intercept and attack Lafayette keeping them out of their attacking third of the field. Lafayette did get off 3 shots ( all on goal) to American’s 4. But otherwise American got off a total of 11 shots to Lafayette’s 4. Sarah Park was kept busy coming out of the cage several times to disrupt the attacking American offense.

The Eagles were quick off the ball and able to disrupt long passes by Lafayette and the lack of corners was critical to keeping the Leopards off the board. You have to say the defense on both sides was good as Lafayette kept American’s top scorer and the patriot league’s leading scorer Noor Coenen from scoring. But she was effective in moving the ball upfield.

The patriot league tournament begins next week in DC and although it looks to me like the field will be Lafayette vs Bucknell  in the first game and American vs BU in the second game. Bucknell beat Holy Cross today 2-1 and Lehigh beat BU. 2-1 in overtime. Since Holy Cross lost 5-4 last week to BU Holy Cross is out based on the tiebreaker.

Lafayette should not take Bucknell for granted, neither should American discount a Boston upset.  Practices for all four teams should be interesting this week.

Boston Out Of Tournament

So it appears that Holy Cross will own the last seed due to tiebreakers according to the Boston University web site. American will play Holy Cross in the first round of the PL tournament!!  The first game will be at 11:30, American vs Holy Cross the second game on Friday is at 2:30 Lafayette vs Bucknell at American