Norwood, Massachusetts, senior All-American earns NE10 weekly honor back-to-back weeks, giving her seven career award
NE10 Field Hockey Weekly Report
Smith earns NE10 Player of the Week accolades for the second-straight week and third time this season overall. (PHOTO BY Andrew Katsampes) |
EASTON, Mass. (September 25, 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-straight week and third time this season overall 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 seventh time in her career with her third award over four weeks this fall after leading Stonehill to a 2-1 comeback win over Assumption College, ranked No. 8 nationally, in its lone game of the week on Saturday. She scored both Skyhawk goals in the second half as they erased a 1-0 halftime deficit to the Greyhounds and avenged their lone loss of the season two weeks earlier. Smith netted the two goals 15-minutes apart to lift Stonehill to its third-straight win and notch her second-straight multi-goal game and the 20th multi-goal outing of her career. She knotted the score 5:26 after halftime on a counter-attack, breaking in one-on-one, and then deking the goalkeeper towards the right, for a shot into the cage past three recovering defenders. Smith put the Skyhawks in front at 55:50 as she pounced on a loose ball in front of the cage off a rebound and poked the ball into the goal for her eighth marker of the year.
Smith's opening goal gave her 200 career points, becoming just the second player in program history, fourth all-time from the NE10 and sixth all-time in NCAA Division II to reach the plateau. Smith finished the afternoon with 85 goals and 32 assists for 202 career points, and now trails former teammate Erika Kelly, '16's program scoring record by just 15 points and ranks sixth all-time in Division II for career goals (3rd NE10). Smith is also within reach of former UMass Lowell standout Sammy Macy's NE10 scoring record of 219 points. Smith's 32 career assists rank third all-time at Stonehill – just four shy of the program record, and 15th all-time in the NE10. Her 19 career gamewinning goals have matched Kelly's program mark.
Smith shares the NE10 scoring lead with 19 points in five games played, also sharing the Conference lead with eight goals and three gamewinning goals, while ranking fifth in assists with three. She leads Division II with 3.80 points and 1.60 goals per game, while ranking ninth nationally with 0.60 assists per game. Smith has at least one point in all five Stonehill games this season, including goals in four of the five, posting a point in 22 of the last 23 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, a two-time Longstreth/NFHCA first team All-American, has started 64 of her 66 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 (4-1, 1-0 NE10), ranked No. 2 in this week's Penn Monto/NFHCA Division II preseason poll, is back in action tomorrow night, when it visits American International College for an NE10 matchup at 3 p.m. Please note the time change for the match. The Skyhawks return home on Saturday to host Bentley University for their Alumnae Game at 1 p.m.
For the latest on Stonehill Athletics, follow the Skyhawks via social media on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Fans can also download the Stonehill Skyhawks "Front Row" mobile app, powered by PrestoSports, on iTunes and the Android Market.
