The No. 19-ranked William & Mary field hockey team advanced to its first Colonial Athletic Association Championship game since 2002 Friday, upsetting No. 15 and second-seeded James Madison 2-1 in the CAA Semifinals.  The Tribe improved to 13-6 with the win, avenging a loss by the same score just one week ago to JMU, while the Dukes fell to 12-6 overall and must await the NCAA Selection Committee to see if they will play again this fall.

Although W&M had the first two shots of the game both in the first five minutes, JMU was able to get on the board first.  First-team All-CAA attacker Miranda Rigg rode the ball through sophomore Morgan Connor (Bedford, N.Y.) into the lower right corner of the goal to take the 1-0 lead midway through the eighth minute. From there, however, the Tribe was able to control play for most of the game.  Sophomore Cata Days (Buenos Aires, Argentina) started a penalty corner in the 12th minute for Booter Ellis (Delmar, Del.) to take a shot, but it was turned away.

W&M's next good chance would not be denied, however.  Solid play in the midfield sprung the ball forward to Days on the right side, and she was able to look up and find first-team All-CAA forward Cammie Lloyd (Midlothian, Va.) right in front of the goal. Lloyd got the ball with her back to goal, and quickly swung the ball across to find junior Jenny McCann (Annandale, Va.) at the back post and McCann redirected the ball into the goal, tying the score at 1-1 with 7:32 left in the first half.  The Tribe had one more chance in the half, drawing another corner with just over five minutes left, but Days' attempted tip slid just wide.

The second half started almost completely opposite the first, with JMU taking two shots early before freshman Ella Donahue (Midlothian, Va.) nearly took the lead just five minutes in. Her shot was cleared off the line by a JMU defender, however, and play continued up and down the field. In the 46th minute, the Tribe was able to draw a very rough foul in the JMU circle that gave W&M both a penalty corner and a player advantage after the Dukes were assessed a yellow card.  While the two shots in the first corner, by Ellis and Christie van de Kamp (Midlothian, Va.) were both saved by JMU goalkeeper Sara Kraeutler, that advantage would later pay dividends towards the end of the 50th minute.

The go-ahead goal came at that point, with Days again taking the role of inserter.  Ellis took a hard shot from the top towards the back post, where sophomore Woodard Hooper (Reston, Va.) was able to get her stick in the way and tip the ball up and over the defense to bang off the bottom of the crossbar and in for the 2-1 lead.  Play continued to be up and down the field for most of the final 20 minutes, with JMU's Rigg taking a number of shots, but Connor was easily able to kick away the only one that was on-frame.  Inside of five minutes remaining, the Dukes were able to finally get the ball down into W&M's circle consistently, drawing three penalty corners but only one of them generated a shot which Connor again kicked away.  Another was broken up before the shot by a spectacular diving charge by first-team All-CAA forward Emma MacLeod (Richmond, Va.), who was able to poke it out into open field and allow the defense to reset.

JMU would have two final opportunities, drawing a penalty corner with no time on the clock. The W&M defense broke it down quickly, but was unable to clear the ball out before another corner was called, JMU's seventh of the game.  This time the Dukes were able to get off the shot, but Connor was again there for the save, and after her defense swept the ball out of the circle, the celebration began for the Tribe.

Starters
W&M: Morgan Connor (GK), Erin Menges, Annie Snead, Christie van de Kamp, Estelle Hughes, Bailey McCarthy, Booter Ellis, Woodard Hooper, Cassidy Goodwin, Cammie Lloyd, Emma MacLeod
JMU: Sara Kraeutler (GK), Melanie Kusakavitch, Miranda Rigg, Ashley Gippe, Cassie Hunter, Casey O'Donnell, Lisa Lejeune, Hannah Hall, McKenzie Ridgely, Floria Sondern, Rachel Yeager

Inside the Numbers
- Morgan Connor made four saves to up her total to 80 stops on a .737 percentage for the year, while on the opposite end of the field, JMU's Sara Kraeutler made five saves and McKenzie Ridgely had a defensive save.
- W&M led the game in shots, 11-9, putting eight of them on-frame.  The Tribe built its lead in the first half, 5-1, while JMU led the second half, 8-6.
- The Dukes took seven penalty corners to just four for the Tribe, including six in the second half and five in the final five minutes.

Notes
W&M advanced to just its third-ever CAA title game, and its first against a team other than Old Dominion ... The Tribe made the very first conference championship, back in 1991, and again made it in 2002 ... W&M improved to 2-9 all-time in the CAA Tournament against JMU, and 3-16 in the semifinal round ... The Tribe is now 12-10 all-time in its opening round games in the CAA Tournament ... Jenny McCann scored her second goal of the season tonight ... Booter Ellis now has a career-and team-best six assists on the year ... Woodard Hooper's goal was her ninth of the season ... This is the first year since 2000 and just the fourth year ever that W&M has had three players score 9 goals in the same season (MacLeod 11, Lloyd 10, Hooper 9) ... Hooper is tied for the CAA lead with five game-winning goals this season ... She now ranks tied for third in a season at W&M, behind only Cristina Limpens '95 and Lydia Donley '92, who each had seven in 1993 and 1991, respectively ... W&M matched the 2004 team with 13 wins, the most since the 2001 team won 14 matches ... Morgan Connor's 13th win of the season ranks her tied for fourth all-time at W&M, the best since Claire Miller '03 won 14 in 2001 ... This was the seventh time in school history that W&M had played the same team in both the regular season finale and the first post-season tournament game, in 1975 (ODU), 1980 (UVA), 1986 and 1988 (Richmond), and 1994 and 1995 (Radford) ... The Tribe improved to 7-0 in those tournament rematches.

Up Next
William & Mary will play for its first CAA Championship on Sunday at 1 p.m., facing four-time defending champion and No. 8-ranked Delaware.  The first meeting this season, two weeks ago, was 3-1 in favor of the Blue Hens.  The game can be streamed live online at CAA.TV.