Owls Look to Slay a Giant in NCAAs

For seven straight seasons, the NCAA Division III season has ended with Middlebury College winning the national championship game – a feat the Panthers also accomplished in 2015 to make it eight of the last nine.

Can Westfield State break that streak?

In none of those seasons did Middlebury lose more than two games, but the Panthers enter the NCAA's with five losses – leaving room for hope that there may be a chink in the armor for the Westfield State University team that faces the Panthers in the first round of the tournament on Wednesday at 4:30 p.m. at Peter Kohn Field on campus in Middlebury, Vt.

Westfield enters with plenty of momentum, a 16-game winning streak and a school record for wins in an 18-3 season in which they went 12-0 in the Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference regular season, with two more wins in the conference tournament to win the title and the league's automatic bid.

Last year, the Owls were happy to be there - winning the MASCAC title for the first time and getting the program's first bid to the NCAA tournament since 1981 – the first year there WAS an NCAA tournament.

Perhaps the Owls lack of tournament seasoning showed, falling 11-0 to Shenandoah University, the number-8 ranked team in the nation.

But this year's Owls team returns eight starters (and 11 players who saw action) from that game, and lacks a fast-turnaround for a midweek game nearly seven hours away.

The Owls are led by senior M/F Kaleigh Murphy, who in the last week both scored her 100^th career point, and was named the MASCAC Tournament MVP after finishing with a goal and an assist in both games.

Murphy has 18 goals and 8 assists for 44 points, the third-best single season in program history.

She gets scoring support from a pair of newcomers – Caroline Andrade, and Kacey Curran.

Andrade opened her career with a bang, being named the NFHCA Offensive Player of the Week in just her second week on the field after starting the season nursing an injury.

Curran picked up her third conference rookie of the week honor this week, after tallying a pair of goals in the Owls MASCAC semifinal win, giving her 12 goals and eight assists on the year.

Junior Ashley D'Elia has added 10 goals.

Defensively, the Owls are anchored by seniors Maddie Barry and Shannon Gover.

Goalkeeper Emma Gniadek has handled all the big games for the Owls, pitching her second shutout of the season in the conference semis, and holds a 1.67 GAA and a .804 save percentage.

While Middlebury graduated three first-team All-Americans a year ago, and the team has more losses than in recent history, the Panthers have been far from a pushover, with only one, one-goal loss in regulation time, and two in OT and two more in shootouts.  And all of those losses were to teams ranked in the top 15 in the nation.

The Panthers have allowed just 18 goals in 17 games.

Junior GK Izzy Redzic 0.89 GAA and .704 save percentage.   The Panthers excel in limiting their opponents scoring chances as they give up less than five shots on goal per game.

Junior Megan Fuqua leads the panthers in scoring with nine goals and two assists for 20 points.  Addie Chandler has added seven goals and Emma McCann six.

The winner of the Owls – Middlebury game advances to a regional at#2 Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md.  for second and third round games on Saturday and Sunday. The winner faces the winner of #8 Endicott and Keene State, who meet in another first round game on Wednesday. 

That game would bring several potential rematches in to play as Keene topped Westfield early in the regular season, while Endicott was a 2-1 winner over Middlebury.