Bloomsburg to Host Shippensburg in Field Hockey Showdown
BLOOMSBURG--The top-ranked Bloomsburg University field hockey team will take on the second-ranked Shippensburg University Lady Raiders at Sports Stadium in Bloomsburg this Saturday at noon. Both teams will be facing their toughest test of the season in a match-up of the top two teams in the country in Division II. Both teams enter the game with identical 10-0 records, 6-0 in the PSAC.
A year ago, the two teams split four meetings with the Huskies winning the fourth and final meeting at the NCAA semifinals and Shippensburg taking the PSAC championship. In their first meeting of the year the Huskies suffered their first loss to Shippensburg by a 6-2 score. The Huskies snapped back on during their second meeting to defeat the Lady Raiders, 3-1, which also marked Bloomsburg's coach Jan Hutchinson's 1,500th career collegiate victory, combined between softball and field hockey. Shippensburg came back and beat Bloomsburg in the PSAC title game before the Huskies got revenge with a 1-0 win in the NCAA playoffs.
This season both squads have been nearly identical in scoring and defense with the Huskies netting 50 goals and allowing eight. Shippensburg has also scored 50 and allowed seven.
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On the season for Bloomsburg, Vanartsdalen leads the Huskies in goals with 13, while Samantha Kropa (Tunkhannock/Lackawanna Trail) is second with 12. Ashley Heckard (Millerstown/Greenwood) and Venessa Witman (Oley/Oley Valley) are tied with six goals a piece. Both Vanartsdalen and Heckard lead the team with five assists each. Maribeth Brozena (Larksville/Wyoming Valley West) leads the team with three game winning goals. Goal keeper Tracey Hudak (Sweet Valley/Lake-Lehman) has stopped a total of 45 shots for an .865 saves percentage.
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For Shippensburg's season this year, both Ashley Watt and Natalie Grazan lead the Lady Raiders with 12 goals each, while Kimberly Davies has scored nine. In assists, Kendra Emery leads the team with seven, while Watt has five and Grazan and Davies have four a piece. In goal, Allie Rutland has 26 saves with a .788 saves percentage.
Bloomsburg's head coach, Jan Hutchinson, is currently in her 29th season in charge of a program that has won 12 national championships and 13 conference titles in the past 25 years. She is also the winningest college coach in any division with 1,552 wins between field hockey and softball. While at Bloomsburg, her field hockey squads have posted winning records in 27 of her 28 seasons and have amassed an overall record of 511-69-20, for a winning percentage of .868. She is the winningest coach in NCAA field hockey history.
Bertie Landes, head coach for Shippensburg, is in her eighth season for the Lady Raiders. She has a mark of 112-31-1 for Shippensburg with a winning percentage of .781. Overall, she has a mark of 301-86-22 in 27 years as head coach.
Overall, the Huskies lead the series between the two teams 33-8.