Senior Kelly Gouveia is the first Stonehill field hockey student-athlete to receive NFHCA Scholar of Disctinction honors. (PHOTO BY Andrew Katsampes)

Dartmouth, Mass., senior named an NFHCA Scholar of Distinction, is one of ten Skyhawks named to Gladiator by SGI National Academic Squad
Skyhawks also receive National Academic Team Award 

EASTON, Mass. (March 21, 2014) – The Stonehill College field hockey program is well represented among the academic accolades announced by the National Field Hockey Coaches Association (NFHCA) this week.

Senior forward Kelly Gouveia (Dartmouth, Mass./Dartmouth) headlines a list of ten Stonehill field hockey student-athletes to be named to the Gladiator by SGI/NFHCA Division II National Academic Squad by earning the NFHCA Division II Scholars of Distinction honor for having a cumulative grade point average of 3.90 or above through the fall 2013 semester. The team has also been recognized with the Gladiator by SGI/NFHCA Division II National Academic Team Award for the tenth-straight year for having a team GPA of 3.0 or above. The Skyhawks are one of ten Northeast-10 Conference programs out of the 22 Division II programs nationwide to earn the NFHCA's Team Academic Award.

Gouveia	Ingersoll
Ciccia	Davis
Del Bonis	Morse
Sheehan	Sideris
Thornton	Travers

Gouveia and senior All-American Devin Ingersoll (Londonderry, N.H./Londonderry) are both four-year Gladiator by SGI/NFHCA National Academic Team Award recipients. They are joined on the Division II National Academic Team by classmates Kelsey Davis (Gardner, Mass./Gardner) and Gina Sheehan (Shrewsbury, Mass./Shrewsbury), juniors Nicole Ciccia (Monroe, Conn./Lauralton Hall) and Emily Sideris (Watertown, Mass./Watertown), sophomores Maggie Travers (Scituate, Mass./Scituate) and Elizabeth Thornton (Needham, Mass./Needham) as well as freshmen Jackie Del Bonis (North Attleboro, Mass./North Attleboro) and Sarah Morse (Westminster, Mass./Oakmont Regional). National Academic Squad members have earned a cumulative grade point average of 3.30 or above through the Fall 2013 semester.

While Gouveia and Ingersoll have both earned National Academic Squad honors all four years, Sheehan, Ciccia and Sideris are now three-time honorees, while Thornton and Travers have collected the academic award for the second time. It marks the sixth straight year and seventh time overall Stonehill has placed ten or more student-athletes on the National Academic Squad, including a program-record 12 in 2010.

Gouveia, who has earned a 3.90 cumulative GPA as an education major at Stonehill, earned NE-10 Academic All-Conference honors for the first time this season after starting 21 of the Skyhawks 22 games this fall and finishing second on the team with 26 points and ten goals, while dishing out six assists. She has earned the Saint Thomas Aquinas, Patron Saint of Students, Medal two straight years for having the highest cumulative GPA on the team and has been named to both the NE-10 Commissioner's and Athletic Director's Honor Rolls all seven semesters.

Ingersoll, who has earned a 3.84 GPA as an environmental science major at Stonehill, is a two-time All-American and two-time first team All-Northeast-10 selection over her career. She started all 84 games over her career, including all 22 this season when she led the Skyhawks with 11 assists to go with five goals for 21 points. Ingersoll was voted the NE-10's Scholar-Athlete Sport Excellence Award recipient and is a two-time NE-10 Academic All-Conference honoree, being named a Capital One Academic All-District I first team selection last year.

Sideris, who has earned a 3.39 GPA as a communication major at Stonehill, is also a two-time All-American and All-Northeast-10 selection. She started 15 of her 17 games played this season and posted eight goals and four assists for 12 points.

Davis, who has earned a 3.32 GPA as an elementary education major, also started all 84 games over her career and earned All-Northeast-10 honors for the first time this fall. She recorded two goals and eight assists for 12 points in 22 starts for the Skyhawks this season.

Sheehan, who has earned a 3.43 cumulative GPA as a mathematics major at Stonehill, was named the NE-10 Defensive Player of the Year this past fall and earned All-America honors for the first time. She is a member of the Kappa Mu Epsilon National Honor Society and earned NE-10 Academic All-Conference honors for the first time this season after dishing out two assists and capped her career having also started all 84 games over her collegiate career.

Stonehill finished the 2013 season with an 18-4 record overall, including an 8-2 clip in the Northeast-10. The Skyhawks were ranked fifth in the final regular season Penn Monto/NFHCA Division II poll and earned the fifth NCAA Tournament bid in program history after reaching the NE-10 Championship for a fifth time. Stonehill opened the season with a program-record 16-straight wins and fell just a win shy of the single-season record of 19 set in 2005.

With 20 intercollegiate sports, Stonehill boasts one of the top athletic and academic programs in the country. The Skyhawks have finished in the top three in the final NE-10 Presidents' Cup standings nine straight years, winning the Cup four times, including a streak of three-straight from 2009-10 through 2011-12. This prestigious award is given to the top performing athletic school in the Northeast-10, across all sports and seasons. Stonehill has received the NCAA Division II Presidents' Award for Academic Achievement each of the first two years if the program's existence of honoring programs with an Academic Success Rate (ASR) of 90-percent or better. The Skyhawks have earned a 97% Academic Success Ranking (ASR) by the NCAA, which considers the academic success rate of the institution based on the graduation rate of student-athletes, good for fifth among all NCAA Division II institutions, with ten Skyhawk teams receiving a perfect rating of 100%. In addition, the Skyhawks are ranked sixth in the National Collegiate Scouting Association (NCSA) Power Rankings used to assess the academic and athletic standards of all NCAA and NAIA athletic programs.

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