Senior All-American Erika Kelly is the first NE-10 Player of the Year in program history. (PHOTO BY SportsPix) |
Three Skyhawks earn All-Conference honors, while pair collect All-Rookie Team status
EASTON, Mass. (November 5, 2015) – Stonehill College senior All-American Erika Kelly (Watertown, Massachusetts/Watertown) headlines a list of three All-Northeast-10 Conference selections by being named the Conference's Player of the Year for field hockey as voted on by the league's 13 head coaches.
Kelly is the first Stonehill field hockey student-athlete to earn NE-10 Player of the Year honors in program history. She is joined on the All-Northeast-10 first team by junior Sarah Morse (Westminster, Massachusetts/Oakmont Regional), while freshman Kacie Smith (Norwood, Massachusetts/Norwood) has been voted to the second team as well as the NE-10 All-Rookie team along with classmate Sara Freedman (Hopkinton, Massachusetts/Hopkinton). Stonehill has now had 50 All-Northeast-10 selections all-time, including 23 on the first team, and placed 12 first year student-athletes on the NE-10's All-Rookie Team since the Conference started the award in 2008.
Kelly |
Morse |
Smith |
Freedman |
Kelly, who earned the Longstreth National Field Hockey Coaches Association (NFHCA) North Region Player of the Year honors as a junior, earns All-Northeast-10 first team honors for the third straight year. She is just the second student-athlete in program history to earn first team honors three times, joining Kelly Latendresse '07, and one of just four three-time All-Conference selections overall. Kelly leads the country in scoring with 56 points and goals with 23. Her team-leading ten assists ranks second nationally and she has posted at least a point in all 18 games this season and 19 straight contests dating back to 2014. She has potted three game-winning goals and her goal total ranks third on the program's single-season list behind her record total of 38 as a sophomore and her 25 markers in 2014.
Kelly, a consensus first team All-American as a sophomore and junior, has broken the Northeast-10 record with 94 career goals, surpassing the previous mark of 91 by UMass Lowell's Sammy Macy (2007-10), which ranks second in NCAA Division II history. Kelly's 208 points in 78 career games ranks third in Division II history and second in the NE-10 behind Macy (219), while her 20 career assists ranks sixth all-time at Stonehill. She has also 18 career game winning goals, including a program-record ten as a sophomore, and has converted 9-of-11 career penalty stroke opportunities, including all three this season. Kelly was voted to the NE-10 All-Rookie Team as a freshman and has been named to the NE-10 Commissioner's Honor Roll.
Morse earns All-Northeast-10 honors for the first time after being named to the NE-10 All-Championship team in helping Stonehill win the 2015 Tournament title. She shares the team lead and ranks second nationally with ten assists this season, having added four goals, three of which are game winners, for 18 points.
Junior Sarah Morse earns All-Conference honors for the first time with a spot on the first team. (PHOTO BY SportsPix) |
Morse's ten assists this fall rank sixth on Stonehill's single-season list, while her 12 helpers in 2014 ranks second all-time. She has totaled six goals and 22 assists for 34 points in 56 career games played, adding one career defensive save. Morse ranks fifth in program history for career saves and has been named to the Gladiator by SGI/NFHCA Division II National Academic Squad each of the last two years, earning NE-10 Commissioner's Honor Roll and Athletic Director's Honor Roll status all four semesters to date. She also received the St. Thomas Aquinas Medal for having the highest cumulative grade point average on the team.
Smith, a four-time NE-10 Rookie of the Week this fall, earns All-Northeast-10 second team honors as well as a spot on the All-Rookie Team. She burst on the collegiate season this fall with 13 goals and seven assists for 33 points, ranking second on the team to Kelly for goals and points, while ranking third behind Kelly and Morse in assists. Smith ranks third among NE-10 leaders for goals, fourth for points and sixth in assists, while ranking tenth nationally in points per game (1.82), ninth for goals per game (0.71) and 13th for assists per game (0.41). She has notched a point in each of her last six games, including a season-best eight points with season-high matching totals of three goals and two assists in the Skyhawks 8-2 win over Southern Connecticut State University on October 16.
Freedman earns a spot on the NE-10's All-Rookie Team, having seen the majority of time in the Stonehill goal during her freshman season. She has posted a 2.11 goals against average and .723 save percentage with 4.8 saves per game and two shutouts in 1,027:49 over 17 games, posting a 10-4 record. Freedman, named the NE-10 Goalkeeper and Rookie of the Week on September 28, ranks eighth in the NE-10 for saves and tenth for goals against average. She posted a season-high nine saves, while yielding just one goal, at Merrimack College on September 17 and then notched two shutouts against Adelphi University and LIU Post in a three game span.
Stonehill (12-6, 9-3 NE-10), ranked No. 10 in this week's Penn Monto/NFHCA Division II poll, is seeded fourth for this week's NE-10 Tournament. The Skyhawks are back in action on Friday at top-seeded and regular season co-champions Adelphi for the semifinal round of the Northeast-10 Tournament at 4 p.m. The winner advances to Sunday's NE-10 Championship against either Assumption College or Merrimack at the site of the higher remaining seed at 1 p.m.
For the latest on Stonehill Athletics, follow the Skyhawks via social media on Twitter and Facebook.