Ultimate Men and Women battle for spots in championship round at High Tide Tournament in Georgia
Ultimate Women
The Ultimate Women's team started the tournament with a strong start jumping out to a halftime lead of 7-4 over the University of Richmond. Maggie Carmona played very well, at times carrying the team on both ends of the field, scoring nine points and several strong defensive plays, leading the women to a 13-7 win over the Spiders. Game two pitted the ladies against Carnegie Melon, and after a convincing defeat the previous year at High Tide, Stonehill would exact some revenge with a hard fought 12-7 victory. The team set a strong zone that challenged the Carnegie Mellon handlers. Stonehill's Carmona caught several points from Kerri Caulfield and Lauren McNamara. Handlers Grace Walkowicz, McNamara, and Caulfield kept the offense moving as the wind picked up, making things more difficult. This left the team 2-0 heading into the final pool play game of the day with Michigan State. The game against the Spartans was a back and forth affair for the majority of the first half, with Michigan State finally taking the lead 7-6. Although Freshman Sara Burnheimer and Pam Louden both had great individual defensive plays, the women would come up little short, finishing 12-9 on the losing end.
For the first game of the day on Wednesday, the team anticipated a tough game after a big loss to Vermont at high tide last year. Jumping out to a 3-1 lead over Vermont. Key defensive plays were made by sophomore Nicki Degrassi and senior Meg Sullivan, who both had several hand blocks while running mark, kept the Stonehill Ladies on offense for much of the game. Despite some uncharacteristic drops, Stonehill pulled out a victory 10 to 5. In their second game of the day, the ladies would face the defending champions and number one seeded Virginia. Stonehill would jump out to a 4-2 lead, as excellent hustle was demonstrated by freshman Burnheimer at wing and sophomore Walkowicz, who had a crucial layout D. Despite the team's best efforts however they would not be able to hold off the Cavaliers, finally succumbing 8-6. Needing a win to secure a spot in the D1 championship bracket on Thursday, the ladies came out firing on all cylinders in their final game of the day against Loyola -Chicago. Dominating from the get-go, the match was never in doubt, with the 13-2 victory propelling them into the championship bracket.
Ultimate Men
The #4 seeded men's team would begin their tournament against #2 seed Rochester University, with both teams evenly matched. Senior Captain Tim Moore lead the team with 3 goals, 2 assists and caused 4 turnovers by Rochester. Freshman Mike Caruso and Pat Kelleher also played well with each scoring 2 goals. However in the end, the team came up just short. Senior Captain Pat Olsen was unable to convert from a few yards out of the end zone during the final point in the game, and Rochester was able to hold on to win 10-9.
Match #2 would pit the Men from the Hill against Case Western Reserve. The first half was again a back and forth battle, with neither team able to steal the momentum, as Case Western would take a 7-5 lead into the half. Olsen was able to recover from the earlier game and would score 1 goal and 3 assists, while Junior Wyatt Landolt-Donnelly would start off the second half with a great lay-out D, and then score on a deep huck from Sophomore Gain Robinson. However, Stonehill was unable to overcome several second half turnovers and fell 10-8.
The third match of the tournament would pit the men against #1 Overall seeded Virginia, who had finished 2009 as the 5th best D1 team in the country. Senior Chris Northrop would make a great lay-out D in the first half getting the Stonehill sideline into the game, but Virginia would dominate the later stages of the half to lead 7-1 at the break. In the second half Senior Captain Olsen scored twice, one coming on a full field huck from Senior Steve Murphy, but it was the lone highlight for the purple and black as they would succumb to the Cavaliers 13-3. A 13-7 victory against Gettysburg would finally get the men into the winner's column, but that was followed by a 10-5 loss to the University of Richmond. For their finally game on Wednesday, the Men put a total team effort together, dominating the University of North Carolina-Greensboro 13-0 to finish pool play at 2-4.