The William & Mary field hockey will play two this weekend, splitting the brace between a road trip and a home trip for the first time this season.  The Tribe will head up the nation's capital on Friday afternoon for a 4 p.m. match-up against American University, before returning home to face Rutgers on Sunday at 1 p.m. in the home-opener.  Friday's game will be broadcast live on the internet (link on the right), and both matches can be followed on live stats.

Scouting the Tribe
W&M opened the season last weekend with an 8-4 loss to No. 4 Duke, in a game that was much closer than the score indicated.  The Tribe out-scored the Blue Devils 3-2 in the second half, and rookie Morgan Connor (Bedford, N.Y.) made a freshman-record 11 saves in her first-ever collegiate game.  Offensively, the Tribe was led by junior Booter Ellis (Delmar, Del.), who scored both a goal (W&M's first of the season) and an assist.  Goals also went to senior captain Maria Jose Pastor (Burke, Va.), as well as junior Cammie Lloyd (Midlothian, Va.) and freshman Cata Days (Buenos Aires, Argentina).

Scouting the Eagles
American opened the year 1-1 last weekend, downing Richmond 3-1 in their opener before falling to No. 20 Old Dominion 2-1.  Leah DiGiandomenico had the hot hand for the weekend with two goals and the winner against the Spiders, while on defense Alexandra Morris made five saves on eight attempts.

Scouting the Scarlet Knights
Rutgers also began the year with a split, losing to Bucknell 2-0 to start before rebounding with a 5-0 win against VCU.  Devon Freshnock and Linde van Schaik both have a pair of goals, with van Schaik adding an assist to her total.  In goal, the Scarlet Knights have split time between Shevaun Hayes, who has a 1.0 GAA and one save in addition to both decisions, and Amanda Lamb, who has a 1.17 GAA and five saves in just under 60 minutes of action.

The Series
- W&M is 14-5-1 all-time against American, but just 3-4-1 in Washington.  The Tribe won the most recent meeting up there in 2013, taking the victory 2-1 in overtime against the No. 18-ranked Eagles at that time.

- Against Rutgers, the Tribe holds a slim 5-4 edge, while the teams are deadlocked in Williamsburg 2-2.  The Scarlet Knights took the most recent contest 3-2 at Busch Field in 2014, snapping a string of five-straight wins for W&M.  Only one meeting between the two teams (in 2006) has ever been decided by more than one goal.

News and Notes
- In addition to being an all-time W&M freshman record, Connor's 11 saves against Duke last week were the most for any Tribe goalie since the 2014 season opener.

- Both American and Rutgers are receiving votes in the NFHCA pre-season poll.  In fact, in addition to the Tribe (who also received votes), 12 of the 18 teams on this year's schedule were either ranked or received votes.  That includes seven of the national top-20, and three of the top-seven teams (No. 4 Duke, No. 5 Virginia, and No. 7 Wake Forest).

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

- In addition to Ellis, both Erin Menges (Richmond, Va.) 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 Pastor 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.