Norwood, Massachusetts, senior All-American earns NE10 weekly honor for sixth time in career
NE10 Field Hockey Weekly Report
EASTON, Mass. (September 18, 2018) – Stonehill College senior All-American Kacie Smith has been named the Northeast-10 Conference's field hockey Player of the Week for the second time this season by the league office today.
Smith, the reigning Longstreth/National Field Hockey Coaches Association (NFHCA) Division II Player of the Year and a two-time NE10 Player of the Year, earns NE10 Player of the Week honors for the sixth time in her career with her second award of the fall after leading Stonehill to a 9-0 triumph over Saint Thomas Aquinas College in its lone game of the week. She totaled nine points with a career-high matching four goals, while adding an assist in the victory. Smith scored the first three goals of the game on Saturday, leading the Skyhawks to a 4-0 halftime lead. She opened the scoring just 4:55 into the match on her way to three goals in the first 20-minutes of the game, before following with a goal and assist in the second half.
Smith moved into a tie for the NE10 scoring lead after her nine-point outburst on Saturday with 15 points, while her six goals rank second in the NE10 and three assists third. She leads Division II with 3.75 points, ranking second with 1.50 goals per game and tenth for assists per game (0.75). Smith's two gamewinning goals leads the NE10 as well and she has at least one point in all four Stonehill games this season, including goals in three of the four, posting a point in 21 of the last 22 games dating back to last season.
Smith had a record-breaking junior season in which she led all three levels of NCAA field hockey in scoring and goals, while leading the NE10 with her school-record 17 assists. She set an NCAA Division II record with 41 goals, while her 99 points set a new NE10 single-season standard. Smith is a two-time Longstreth/NFHCA North Region Player of the Year and All-NE10 first team selection, earning All-NE10 honors all three seasons.
Smith enters the week two points shy of becoming just the second student-athlete in Stonehill history, fourth all-time in the NE10 and sixth in NCAA Division II history to reach 200 career points. NCAA Division II's active scoring leader is 19 points shy of former teammate Erika Kelly '16's Stonehill career scoring record of 217 points, while Smith's 83 career goals rank second to Kelly's program mark of 98, fourth all-time in NE10 history behind Kelly's record and seventh in NCAA Division II history. Smith has also dished out 32 career assists to rank third all-time at Stonehill – just four shy of the program record, and 15th all-time in the NE10. Her 18 career gamewinning goals are one shy of Kelly's program mark.
Smith, a two-time Longstreth/NFHCA first team All-American, has started 63 of her 65 career games played at Stonehill, earned a spot on the NE10 Academic All-Conference team as a junior and appeared in the "Faces in the Crowd" section of the November 6, 2017 issue of Sports Illustrated. Smith is a Zag/NFHCA National Academic Squad member and been named to the NE10 Commissioner's Honor Roll and Athletic Director's Honor Roll multiple semesters.
Stonehill (3-1, 0-0 NE10), ranked No. 2 in this week's Penn Monto/NFHCA Division II preseason poll, returns to action on Saturday, when it opens its NE10 schedule at No. 8-ranked Assumption College, which handed the Skyhawks their lone defeat of the season, at 1 p.m. The Skyhawks return home on Saturday, September 29, to host Bentley University for their Alumnae Game at 1 p.m.
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