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Sarah Woods

PREVIEW: No. 7 field hockey hosts Adelphi for NE10 Semifinals showdown

11/17/2022 6:00:00 PM

MANCHESTER, N.H. – The nationally-ranked Saint Anselm College field hockey team returns to action Friday, Nov. 18 at 4 p.m., playing host to Adelphi University in the Northeast-10 Conference Semifinals.

No. 7 SAINT ANSELM COLLEGE HAWKS (14-5, 11-2 NE10)
Roster | Schedule & Results | 2022 Statistics | News

ADELPHI UNIVERSITY PANTHERS (11-8, 9-4 NE10)
Roster | Schedule & Results | 2022 Statistics | News

The winner of Friday's tilt will earn a spot in the NE10 Championship to be played on Sunday at the site of the higher seed. Saint Anselm (14-5) is the top seed in the NE10 playoffs while Adelphi (11-8) entered the tournament as the No. 4 seed.

Junior Abbey Bevens (Pelham, N.H.) scored the game-winning goal for the No. 7-ranked Hawks on Tuesday in the NE10 Quarterfinals, sending Saint Anselm to a 2-1 victory over Southern New Hampshire. The Hawks are appearing in the semifinals round of the league playoffs for the first time since the 2019 campaign.

Adelphi was on the winning end of a seven-goal thriller against Saint Thomas Aquinas on Tuesday, claiming a 4-3 victory. Down 1-0 early in the game, the Panthers piled up four of the game's next five goals to hold on to the win. STAC fired 26 shots against the Panthers, but could not tie the game late.

Tickets for Friday's tilt are $10 for adults with children and senior citizens charged $5 for entry. Students with valid identification from a Northeast-10 Conference member institution shall be admitted free of charge.

SCOUTING SAINT ANSELM

  • Saint Anselm matched Assumption this season with an 11-2 regular-season record in league play and claimed the No. 1 seed by virtue of a head-to-head victory over the Greyhounds earlier this season.
  • Saint Anselm remained second out of five teams in the most recent set of NCAA Division II Field Hockey rankings released earlier this week. The Hawks trail the top-ranked program from Assumption and are placed ahead of Bentley, Pace and Adelphi in the top five.
  • Last time out against Southern New Hampshire on Tuesday in the NE10 Quarterfinals, Bevens' game-winning goal preceded a game-tying strike by junior Maddie Davis (Exeter, N.H.) just 22 seconds after the first goal of the game, scored by the Penmen. Junior Mackenzie McConnell (Concord Township, Maine) made four saves on five shots in the victory.
  • Senior Maggie Malloy (Canton, Mass.) was selected as the NE10 Player of the Year while McConnell earned the league's Goalkeeper of the Year accolade. Head Coach Carolyn King-Robitaille was also voted by her peers as the NE10 Coach of the Year.
  • Malloy becomes the first student-athlete in Saint Anselm history to collect the overall Player of the Year award from the NE10. McConnell is the third Hawks netminder to earn Goalkeeper of the Year since 2016 while King-Robitaille draws Coach of the Year plaudits for the fourth time in her career.
  • Malloy is in the midst of a record-setting season on the Hilltop, establishing single-season team records in point scoring (45) and goal scoring (19) to rank third in NCAA Division II in points per game (2.37). She enters her team's NE10 Semifinals game on Friday as the nation's second-highest scorer, averaging exactly one goal per game.
  • McConnell has started each of her team's 19 games to date, posting an 0.75 goals-against average alongside an .841 save percentage, ranking second in the country in both metrics. Winning 14 of those 19 contests, she has posted five shutouts and has had a hand in each of her team's eight clean sheets to date this season.
  • King-Robitaille reached 14 victories in a season for the seventh time in her career in 2022, leading her team back to the NE10 Semifinals. The owner of a 133-64 (.675) career record, the Hawks were a combined 49-139 (.261) in program history prior to her hiring in 2012.
  • Graduate student Jackie Gaumer (Thornton, N.H.), a Second Team pick last season, joined first-time honoree Malloy and second-time selection McConnell on the First Team All-Conference roster while Davis was a Second Team All-NE10 pick in 2022.
  • Senior Joanna Archambault (Andover, Mass.) secured Third Team honors for the second consecutive season with freshman Millie Forster (Cholmondeley, Cheshire, England) named to the All-Rookie Team.
  • Malloy was picked as the Player of the Week by the Northeast-10 Conference on Monday.  She scored a team-leading five goals last week, helping the Hawks to a perfect 3-0 record with three tallies against Southern Connecticut State on Friday before posting two goals at New Haven on Saturday.
  • Davis now has a career-long streak of nine games with at least one point, racking up 10 goals and six assists for 26 points (10-6=26) in that span. Malloy has points in right of her last nine games, scoring five goals of her team's last 12 goals in the last three games.
  • When playing at home in the friendly confines of Grappone Stadium, Saint Anselm has produced a 68-10 (.872) record since the start of the 2015 campaign. Since the 2018 season, the Hawks have lost just six out of their 45 games played at home and only four of those defeats have come in regulation time.

SCOUTING ADELPHI

  • Five student-athletes from the Adelphi roster were named to the NE10 All-Conference team on Thursday. The Panthers had two First Team selections, including the 2021 NE10 Player of the Year Kaylee Deleva and fellow graduate student Bianca Bachisin.
  • Deleva has struck for 14 goals this season and ranks second on the team with 29 points (14-1=29) while Bachisin has knocked home 10 goals and six assists for 26 points (10-6=26). Deleva had the overtime game-winning goal for Adelphi against Saint Anselm on Oct. 1, scoring the game's only marker on her team's only shot on frame.
  • Amanda Lee, a Second Team All-Conference pick, is the Adelphi team leader in point scoring with 13 goals and eight assists for 34 points (13-8=34). Giana McKeough, a Third Team selection, matched Lee with eight assists.
  • Netminder Mirthe Karstens has started 12 of her team's 19 games, posting a goals-against average of 2.28 while making 103 saves. She won five games on the season with Amanda Montiel, the team's reserve netminder, winning six of her seven starts on the year.
  • The Panthers, who lost to Assumption in the NE10 title game last season, were selected fourth in the annual NE10 Preseason Coaches' Poll released in mid-August. Adelphi made it all the way to the NCAA First Round last year, falling to No. 4-ranked West Chester by a three-goal margin.
  • Adelphi is coached by Jess Mulhern, a 2012 graduate of Adelphi, who was the Head Coach at Limestone since the 2017 campaign.

ALL-TIME, NE10 POSTSEASON

  • Saint Anselm owns an 8-6 record in the NE10 postseason all-time and has made it to the NE10 Championship game on three occasions. The Hawks won their first NE10 postseason title in 2019, defeating Southern New Hampshire by a 2-0 margin in November 2019.
  • Saint Anselm has won six of its last eight NE10 playoff games with its most recent defeat coming at home to Pace on Nov. 1, 2021 in the opening round.
  • Adelphi is 7-9 in the NE10 postseason all-time, finishing as the NE10 runner-up last season after falling to Assumption by a 3-2 score on Nov. 7, 2021. The Panthers remain in search of their first NE10 postseason title in program history.

ALL-TIME vs. ADELPHI

  • Adelphi holds a 10-6 lead in the all-time series, but Saint Anselm has claimed the "W" in four of the last six games.
  • In the regular-season meeting earlier this season, Saint Anselm overwhelmed the Panthers with 18 of the game's 22 shot attempts, limiting Adelphi to just one shot on goal. However, the visitors converted on that chance as Deleva put home a rebound attempt just 4:33 into overtime to end the game.
  • Saint Anselm forced Karstens into making 10 saves in what proved to be a complete-game shutout. McConnell saw a modest shutout streak end at 202:58 with the overtime tally.
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