Darrell Named As 2007 Northeast-10 Women's Lacrosse Player Of Year, Kelly Tabbed As League's Defensive Player Of Year As Duo Part Of All-Conference Skyhawk Quintet

May 4, 2007

Easton, Mass.-- Stonehill junior All-America midfielder Kristin Darrell was named on Friday evening as the 2007 Northeast-10 Conference Women's Lacrosse Player of the Year in a vote of the league's coaches, becoming the fourth player in school history to cop the honor in the league's nine-year existence. The announcement of this year's Northeast-10 award winners was made at the 2007 pre-championship banquet hosted at the Martin Institute on the Stonehill campus.

Darrell, a native of West Islip, N.Y. and a graduate of West Islip High School, leads Head Coach Michael Daly's Skyhawks in scoring with 59 goals and 23 assists for 82 points while registering 26 draw controls, 23 ground balls and 16 caused turnovers. Darrell has netted hat tricks in 13 of Stonehill's 17 contests to date, including a school-record tying nine-goal performance back on March 27th in a 20-8 victory at Merrimack, and she currently ranks fifth on the school's career points list with 186 goals and 55 assists for 241 points. Darrell joins Allie Riccio (1999) and three-time honorees Katie Lambert (2001-2003) and Erin Acone (2004-2006) in earning Northeast-10 Player of the Year accolades, meaning that a Skyhawk has won the award for seven straight seasons and in eight of nine years overall under Daly's tutelage.

Additionally, Stonehill sophomore midfielder Michelle Kelly was tabbed as the 2007 Northeast-10 Defensive Player of the Year in a vote of the league's coaches, as she also becomes the fourth player in school history to win the award, joining Katie Shannon (2002), Kate Sarkissian (2004) and Meaghan Carey (2005). A native of Mendham, N.J. and a graduate of West Morris Mendham High School, Kelly ranks second to Darrell in scoring with 51 goals and 26 assists for 77 points, and she has added a team-best 43 draw controls, 30 ground balls and 19 caused turnovers to date in anchoring the second ranked defensive unit in the nation.

Darrell and Kelly were joined on the 2007 first team all-Northeast-10 squad by senior Tracey Hoffman (Nashua, N.H./Nashua) and sophomore Kristyn Gramzow (Billerica, Mass./Billerica). Hoffman ranks third on the Stonehill scoring list with 29 goals and 33 assists for 62 points to date, while Gramzow has also played a major role in the success of the Skyhawk defense with 21 ground balls, 14 caused turnovers and 10 draw controls to date while adding four goals and four assists for eight points, as Daly's crew is allowing just 6.35 goals per match.

Freshman Jaclyn Craig (Rocky Point, N.Y./Rocky Point) earned second team all-Northeast-10 accolades for efforts in her rookie campaign for Stonehill, as she ranks third on the team with 25 ground balls while adding 21 draw controls and 14 caused turnovers while chipping in with four goals and an assist for five points on the offensive side.

Sophomore Rebecca Cottam (Belmont, Mass./Belmont) was recognized for her accomplishments off the field for the Skyhawks, as she earned a spot on the 2007 Northeast-10 Academic All-Conference first team women's lacrosse squad. Cottam sports a 3.65 cumulative grade point average as a Business major and becomes the 37th Stonehill student-athlete to earn Northeast-10 Academic All-Conference accolades during this academic year.

Stonehill, 16-1 overall and ranked second nationally in the IWLCA Division II national poll, captured its ninth straight Northeast-10 regular season title this spring with its seventh straight unblemished mark (10-0) in league action, as the Skyhawks have won 68 straight conference contests dating back to April 2000. Daly's squad has earned the top seed for the ninth straight year in the Northeast-10 championships and begins its quest for its eighth straight tournament title Saturday afternoon by entertaining Merrimack in a league semi-final match at W.B. Mason Stadium beginning at 1:00 p.m. EDT.