POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y. - The Marist Women's Soccer team (13-5-2 overall) found out who they would play their first-ever NCAA tournament game on Monday afternoon as the NCAA released their 2011 tournament bracket. The Red Foxes will take on the fourth-seeded Boston College Eagles (11-5-2) on Sunday, Nov. 13 at 1 p.m. in Newton, Mass. at the school's off-campus Newton Soccer Complex.
Boston College is currently ranked 20th by the NSCAA and TopDrawerSoccer.com. The Eagles finished the season with an 11-5-2 record, while posting a 6-4-0 conference record in the ACC. In the NCAA Women's Soccer bracket only the top 16 teams, as determined by the selection committee, are seeded, hence Boston College's designation as a number four seed. The four seeded teams in the Red Foxes' regional are Stanford, Oklahoma State and Auburn.
A common opponent to both Marist and Boston College this season is Fairfield. The Red Foxes are 1-0-1 versus the Stags this year with a 1-0 regular season victory on Oct. 2 and a 1-1 tie, but 3-2 advancement in penalty kicks in the MAAC Tournament on Friday, Nov. 4. The Eagles and Stags met on Aug. 21 with Boston College coming out on top by a 1-0 score.
Marist and Boston College most recently met during the 2009 regular season, with the Eagles securing a 4-0 home victory. Six current Red Foxes: seniors Kathryn Harris (Bloomsbury, N.J.) and Mariah Downey (Cheshire, Conn.) and juniors Jessica Arabia (Naperville, Ill.), Chelsea Botta (East Longmeadow, Mass.), Jackie Frey (Monroe, N.Y.) and Jaclynn Sabia (Wayne, N.J.) competed in that contest versus Boston College, who was ranked #10 at that time.
The Red Foxes are coming off an exciting weekend of MAAC Tournament play in Baltimore where they earned back-to-back victories over Fairfield and Loyola to win their first-ever MAAC Championship. On Friday, they advance over the Stags on penalty kicks 3-2 and on Sunday, they defeated Loyola in regulation by a score of 1-0 on freshman Amanda Epstein's (Jericho, N.Y.) eighth game-winning goal of 2011.
Marist is led into the NCAA Tournament by MAAC Rookie of the Year Amanda Epstein and her team-leading statline of 11 goals, six assists and 28 points. Second on the team in scoring is sophomore and All-MAAC First Team honoree Rycke Guiney (Naperville, Ill.), who has scored eight goals and tallied nine assists for 25 total points. Defensively, the team is led by three All-MAAC defenders and one All-MAAC midfielder. All-MAAC Second Team honoree and All-MAAC Rookie Marissa Mertens (Hicksville, N.Y.) is flanked by wing backs Arabia, a First Teamer and Botta, a Second Teamer. Hannis is the sixth award winning Red Fox, as she earned Second Team accolades for her hard-nosed two-way play as a midfielder. In goal, junior Caitlin Landsman (Burke, Va.) has posted a 0.73 goals against average to go along with a .750 save percentage, 8-1-2 record and five shutouts.
After the announcement Head Coach Kate Lyn remarked that she was "really excited for the matchup with Boston College. They played Fairfield earlier this season and had a similar result as we did. To have this be a regional game, this should help give our team a bit more comfort and support."
Landsman remarked that she also was happy with the matchup, "we're happy to get Boston College, they're a Northeast school and we have past experience against them. We played them my freshman [2009] year, so we know what it takes to take on a big team like B.C."
