Stonehill College field hockey team bids for national championship this weekend

By Jim Fenton
ENTERPRISE STAFF WRITER 

Stonehill head coach Shelley Morris (left) and captains (l-r) Claire Hourihan, Jackie Ladino and Ashley March met with the media Thursday ahead of Friday's National Semifinal with UMass Lowell.

EASTON - The Stonehill College field hockey team got off to a rough start in the opening 12 days of the 2008 season.

The Skyhawks went 0-4 in that stretch as they tried to adapt on the fly to the system of Coach Shelly Morris, who had been on the job only since the beginning of August.

"My hire date was Aug. 1 and we started practicing Aug. 13,'' recalled Morris. "I hadn't met anybody. I hadn't seen a play. I didn't know anything.

"I had given a lot of information, changed the system, changed the defense. We had a lot of changes and made a lot adjustments coming in. I spoke a different language, quite honestly.''

Once Stonehill made it through that rocky beginning, there has been a lot of winning and very little losing going on.

Since dropping the first four games in 2008, the Skyhawks have gone 30-8, finishing last season with 13 wins in the last 17 games and going 17-4 with the Northeast-10 Conference regular-season championship this fall.

Now, Stonehill is just two wins away from the program's first national title, and the Skyhawks will be at home as they try to make that happen.

Stonehill, ranked third in the nation, is hosting the NCAA Div. 2 Field Hockey Championships at W.B. Mason Stadium and faces fifth-ranked UMass-Lowell (17-5) at 5 p.m. on Friday.

Three-time defending champion and top-ranked Bloomsburg University (20-1) meets second-ranked Shippensburg University (20-2) at 2 p.m. in a matchup of Pennsylvania teams. The championship will be decided on Sunday at 1 p.m.

The Skyhawks finished the 2008 season on a positive note and built on that success this season, going 9-1 in the NE-10 for its second regular-season title.

"I think the team handled it well,'' said Morris of the quick transition process early last season, "and we started doing well at the end of the year. But we just ran out of time.

"I knew we had some talent returning this year. We have four seniors and six juniors on the field. I knew we were returning some experience. We came together in the spring. We had a really good spring. We all got on the same page.

"I had a feeling we were going to have a good year. Would I have predicted that we would be the No. 1 seed (in the North) and hosting the national championship? Probably not, but I'm not shocked either.''

Stonehill's last trip to the NCAA tourney was in 2006 when it lost to Bentley in the quarterfinal round, 3-1. The Skyhawks were defeated by UMass-Lowell, 2-1, in the semifinal round in 2005.

During the regular season this fall, Stonehill defeated UMass-Lowell, 2-1, on Sept. 10 and 3-1 on Oct. 13.

"I think Lowell is a tournament team and displayed that over the weekend by beating Bentley (in the quarterfinal round),'' said Morris, whose team is 9-1 at home. "We can't them lightly, even if you've beaten them 10 times this year. It's going to be a good matchup.

"We've been sitting kind of idle for (almost) two weeks, so that'll be definitely a factor to some degree. But at the same time, we're ready to go. They want to play.''

Leading the way for the Skyhawks are seniors Claire Hourihan (20 goals, four assists) and Jackie Ladino (12 goals, five assists) and sophomore Kathryn Nelson (10 goals, three assists).

"Claire is just a natural scorer,'' said Morris. "She finds herself in the right place at the right time a lot. Jackie Ladino is a very determined player. She's a targeted player and we have to keep moving her around to get her opportunities.

"With people targeting those two, it's opened up opportunities for Kathryn to score.

You take out one, we've got a couple of others who can do the job.''

Morris, a Massachusetts native who played at Northeastern University, was 67-61 in six seasons coaching Div. 1 Ohio University. She guided the Bobcats to four trips to the Mid-American Conference final and was in the NCAAs in 2001.

With two more wins, she will have led the Skyhawks to a national title on their own field.

"I think it'd be amazing,'' said Morris. "These kids have earned it, going this far. They did a lot in the offseason. I think it'd be tremendous for this school and these kids and everybody.''