NCAA.com Field Hockey Season Preview

2009 Field Hockey Preview - (NCAA.com)

SOUTH HADLEY, Mass. (Aug. 29, 2009) - NCAA.com has highlighted Bowdoin College, Tufts University, Messiah College, Ursinus College, Salisbury University and Middlebury College in its preview of the 2009 field hockey season. The Division III National Championship is slated to take place at the Mount Holyoke Turf Field in November.

Bowdoin
The defending national champs had a great deal of magic conspiring against them in the national championship game, taking on a Tufts team that crept into the final game after nine years of missing the Tournament completely. Luckily, Bowdoin also had Lindsay McNamara. After Tufts evened the score at 2-2 in the second half and sent the game into two OT’s, the Polar Bears’ all-time leading scorer tapped in a rebound to give Bowdoin its second straight title. But McNamara left Bowdoin with every goal-scoring mark in program history. Fellow first-team All-American Julia King and third-teamer Leah Ferenc aren’t around anymore, either. So, without its two engines up front and Ferenc, who anchored a Polar Bear defense that led the country in goals-against average, Bowdoin may have to scramble to find its stride in the early goings.

Tufts
By virtue of its run through the Tournament last year, Tufts finds an automatic place as one of our teams to watch this year. But, judging by its roster, it would’ve had a spot anyway. The Jumbos’ 2008 season, bringing them to their first NCAA Tourney in nine years and a final record of 19-2, came thanks to one of the most talented teams to ever set foot in Somerville, Mass. – a team that had only three seniors. Just three. That means that all three of the Jumbos’ top-scoring trio of Tamara Brown, Amanda Russo and Michelle Kelly are all back (accounting for 125 points in ’08). The loss of Marlee Kutcher on defense could hurt, but back in net is Marianna Zak and her 0.91 GAA last year. So, a year removed from a program renaissance, look for Tufts to just add to last year’s huge push forward.

Messiah
The last of the 19 teams that Tufts sliced through in ’08, Messiah advanced to the national semifinals 100 miles down the road at Collegeville, Penn. Like Tufts, the Falcons lost only three seniors to graduation, with the bulk of the team returning – including first-team All-Americans Julie Barton at midfield and Ashley Mowery in net, along with third-teamer Brittany Godshall on defense. Don’t forget, this is a team that finished the regular season in the top position in the STX/NFHCA poll and knocked off 10 teams in the top 20 en route to the 12th national semifinals berth in program history. The pedigree is there for another journey toward the final weekend with seven of the Falcons’ top eight point-scorers returning from last year.

Ursinus
By far the nation’s most explosive offensive team in 2008, at 6.18 goals a game (1.09 ahead of second-place Lebanon Valley), Ursinus is back after falling at home in the national semis to Bowdoin. While top scorers Jennie Moore and Kait Sutherland are gone, back are 17-goal scorers Alyssa Thren and Jen Hooven and a slew of members of the 2006 national championship team. And if taking on the country’s best weren’t enough, the Bears jetted off to Europe in the spring for a 10-day tour around Holland, Belgium and Germany, taking on international competition throughout.

Salisbury
Two facts jump out about Salisbury’s 15-3 season in 2008. The first is that the Sea Gulls allowed only 13 goals the entire season, including four in its 4-3, NCAA Tourney second-round loss to Cortland State. The second is that they did it with just one senior. Going into 2009, the only missing piece from last year’s defensive machine is Heather Berntsen, who graduated in the spring. So, if there were to be a year for Salisbury to win its first national championship since 2005, this year looks to be it. With every top scorer – well, every scorer – set to come back, what better way to reward coach Dawn Chamberlain, who in January was inducted into the NFHCA Hall of Fame?

Middlebury
It’s getting crowded in the NESCAC, with Bowdoin and Tufts asserting themselves as the nation’s best in 2008, a year after Middlebury fell to the Polar Bears in the 2007 championship game. Although Bowdoin’s reigned lately, the pile beneath the Bears has only gotten better, with Middlebury always near the top. All four of the Panthers’ losses last year came to Bowdoin and Tufts, so look for them to roar back with added fire this year, led by junior All-American Chase Delano (61 points in ’08) and fellow forward Heather McCormack (29 points).