The William & Mary field hockey begins its 94th intercollegiate season on Friday evening, with a road trip down to Durham, N.C. to face No. 4 Duke.  The starting whistle for the Tribe and Blue Devils is set for 6 p.m., and can be followed both on live stats and in live video on the WatchESPN app and WatchESPN.com.  The feed is free to ESPN cable and internet subscribers as part of the ACC Network Extra package.

Scouting the Tribe
W&M went 7-12 in 2015, finishing sixth in the Colonial Athletic Association.  The Green and Gold returns eight starters from a year ago, and seven of the top nine scorers.  That includes the junior trio of Emma MacLeod (Richmond, Va.), Erin Menges (Richmond, Va.) and Cammie Lloyd (Midlothian, Va.), who all scored 16 points while combined for 20 goals and eight assists, as well as pre-season All-CAA midfielder Booter Ellis (Delmar, Del.).  Ellis ranks eighth among all returning players nationally and tops in the CAA with five defensive saves from a year ago.

Scouting the Blue Devils
Duke reached the NCAA semifinals last fall with a 14-7 record, and begin the year picked No. 4 in the NFHCA national poll and also in the ACC pre-season poll.  The Blue Devils return their top eight leading goal scorers, led by Heather Morris (11g, 4a) and Ashley Kristen (7g, 8a).  They also graduated a three-time All-American in goal.

The Series
All-time, W&M is 8-24-1 against Duke, including a 2-12-1 mark in Durham.  The last Tribe win was against a No.-8 ranked squad in 2001, 2-1, and more recently, the Green and Gold battled the Blue Devils to a 2-1 decision on the road in 2013.

News and Notes
- Head coach Tess Ellis begins her fourth season with the Tribe on Friday, and has twice been named the CAA Coach of the Year (in both 2013 and 2014).

- This is the earliest W&M has ever played Duke, and just the second time the two teams have faced off in the season opener.  The previous time was in 1999, when the Blue Devils won 3-1 in Durham on Aug. 28.

- In addition to Ellis, both Menges and Lloyd earned honorable mention spots on the CAA pre-season team.

- The Tribe returns 10 of its 11 defensive saves from a year ago, far and away the most in the Colonial Athletic Association.  In addition to Ellis' five field stops, fifth-year senior Maddy Moore (Norfolk, Va.) had three and Menges and Caroline Arrowood (Chesapeake, Va.) had one each.

- Both Moore and senior Maria Jose Pastor (Burke, Va.) were elected captains for this season.

- This is the first season since 1986 that W&M enters the season with no previous game experience in goal.  That actually bodes pretty well for the Tribe, given that the 1986 season marked the debut for both Carlen Sellers '89 and Sharon Barone '90.  Sellers would set the still-standing career records for save percentage (.896) and goals-against average (0.87), while Barone graduated as--and is still--the all-time leader in saves (768) and saves per game (11.13), in addition to ranking second in percentage (.879) and shut-outs (25.5).

- Back in the spring, W&M had three freshmen named among the nation's top-50 recruits by MaxFieldHockey.com, one of just six schools in the entire country to achieve that feat.  Cassidy Goodwin (Gloucester, Va.), Annie Snead (Midlothian, Va.), and Christie van de Kamp (Midlothian, Va.) were the selections, and later in the summer, teamed up under assistant coach Mark Egner at the Young Women's National Championships to roll to an undefeated national title in the U19 division.