The William & Mary field hockey team welcomes Monmouth to town on Wednesday afternoon, for the first-ever NCAA Tournament game in Williamsburg.  The Tribe and the Hawks will square off at 1 p.m. at Busch Field in Williamsburg in the opening round of the 2018 NCAA Tournament, fighting for the right to advance to the Chapel Hill Regional this weekend.  The game can be followed live online via livestats and live video, accessible through TribeAthletics.com and NCAA.com.

Live on TribeAthletics.TV
Wednesday's game will be streamed live and free of charge on TribeAthletics.TV.  W&M assistant director of media relations Andrew Phillips will provide play-by-play, and be joined by former Tribe great Chaney Manganello '14 for analysis and commentary.  Manganello played at W&M from 2010-13, and was named second-team All-CAA as a senior in 2013 after captaining the team to two-straight CAA Tournament appearances and a road win over No. 5 Virginia.  She appeared in 70 matches, and scored two goals and 10 assists in her career.  Since graduating, Manganello has coached at Longwood University, and is currently an assistant field hockey coach at the University of Richmond.

Want to Go?
As a national post-season event, tickets will be required for entry into the facility and the game.  The price of an adult ticket is $5.00, and the prices for all other tickets (children 12-and-under, seniors, students with ID, and military) is $3.00.  Tickets must be paid for with cash only at the gate.  The first 100 W&M students to show up with their IDs will get into the game free, courtesy of the Tribe Club.

The field is located at 600 Brooks Street, Williamsburg, Va. 23185.  Parking is available in the Kaplan Arena lot, located one block to the north along Brooks Street.

Scouting the Tribe
William & Mary is 11-7 on the year, and earned its way into the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2002 after upsetting No. 14 Delaware in the CAA Championship game, 3-2.  That game was one of the Tribe's program-record and NCAA-leading eight overtime games and five overtime wins this season.  Redshirt-senior Estelle Hughes (Newcastle, NSW, Australia) scored her fourth game-winner with her overtime goal, and was named the Most Outstanding Player of the Championships after scoring both game-winners on the weekend.  For the season, Hughes leads W&M with 30 points on 12 goals and six assists.  Junior Woodard Hooper (Reston, Va.) also has 12 goals (and an assist), while junior captain Christie van de Kamp (Midlothian, Va.) has eight goals and eight assists.  Another junior, Annie Snead (Midlothian, Va.) has a school-record 11 assists to go with three goals.  On defense, Cassidy Goodwin (Gloucester, Va.) has two defensive saves, and freshman Kimi Jones (Virginia Beach, Va.) has a 1.76 GAA and 56 saves on a .718 save percentage while going 9-3.

Scouting the Hawks
Monmouth is making its third NCAA appearance of the last five years after winning the MAAC Championship.  The Hawks are 13-6 overall, and are outscoring opponents by more than a goal per game.  Individually, Georgia Garden Bachop won MAAC Player of the Year honors and leads the team with 37 points (16g,5a), including seven game-winning goals.  Kelly Hanna (9g,8a) and Annick van Lange (9g,3a) have also scored more than 20 points.  On defense, both Kate O'Hogan and Gabi Millan have split time close to evenly, with O'Hogan boasting a 1.16 GAA and 25 saves on a .694 percentage to go 9-1.  Millan, meanwhile, has a 2.12 GAA and 41 saves on a .661 save percentage, for a 4-5 record.

The Series
Wednesday is just the third meeting all-time between W&M and Monmouth, with the Tribe holding a 2-0 advantage.  In 2011, W&M won 3-1 on the road with the game-winner scored just 46 seconds in by Emma Clifton '15, and last year, the Tribe won 2-1 at home in a driving rainstorm as Hooper scored in the 68th minute out of a corner to break a 1-1 tie.

Notes
- The winner of Wednesday's game will advance to the Chapel Hill Regional, where they will take on No. 1-seed and No. 1-ranked North Carolina (19-0) on Friday, Nov. 9, at 12 p.m.

- Wednesday is the first post-conference field hockey game in Williamsburg since the 1979 AIAW Region II Championships.  W&M hosted the regional tournament in 1977 and 1979, going 5-1 in those two tournaments and winning the title in 1979.  The Tribe has also hosted the Virginia State Championships in 1983, and conference tournaments in 1987, 1993, 1998, and 2004.

- The Tribe previously made the NCAA Tournament first round in 2000 (losing in double-overtime to No. 5 Michigan) and in 2002 (losing in overtime to No. 5 Maryland).

- W&M made the national field at the AIAW/USFHA National Championships four times between 1975-80, going a combined 8-7.  In 1975, the Tribe finished a best-ever fourth, before falling in the consolation quarterfinals in 1976, taking fifth in 1979, and making the consolation quarterfinals again in 1980.

- W&M's win in the CAA Championship final was its first-ever conference tournament crown, dating back to the start of the South Atlantic Conference in 1984.  The SAC became the CAA in 1991.  Overall, W&M has appeared in five conference title games, in 1989, 1991, 2002, 2017, and 2018.

- The Tribe has a number of athletes racking up honors and awards this season:
    - Estelle Hughes - Most Outstanding Performer of the CAA Championships, CAA All-Tournament Team, First-Team All-CAA, NFHCA Senior Game, CAA Player of the Week (Sept. 11)
    - Christie van de Kamp - CAA All-Tournament Team, CAA Defensive Player of the Year, First-Team All-CAA
    - Annie Snead - Second-Team All-CAA
    - Woodard Hooper - Second-Team All-CAA, CAA Player of the Week (Oct. 9)
    - Cassidy Goodwin - CAA All-Tournament Team, Second-Team All-CAA
    - Kimi Jones - CAA All-Tournament Team, CAA Rookie of the Year, CAA All-Rookie Team, CAA Rookie of the Week (Oct. 16, Oct. 30)
    - Cara Menges - CAA All-Rookie Team, CAA Rookie of the Week (Oct. 2)
    - Jorja Morgan - CAA All-Rookie Team
    - Tess Ellis - CAA Coach of the Year

- W&M's eight all-conference honorees (before the CAA Tournament) were the most-ever not just in program history, but in conference history as well.  That included two first-team honorees, three on the second team, and a program-record three on the All-Rookie team.

- Tess Ellis was named the CAA Coach of the Year for the third time in her six seasons at the helm of Tribe field hockey.

- W&M has back-to-back 11-win seasons for the first time since 2004 and 2005.

- With Hughes and Hooper both scoring 12 goals, it's the first time since 2003 and just the seventh time overall that W&M has had a pair of players with a dozen goals each in the same season.

- Snead scored her 11th assist of the year in the CAA Semifinal win over Northeastern, tying the program record that has stood since 1979.  All-American Pixie Hamilton '80 set that mark, which was also tied by All-American Karen Thorne '84 in the 1982 season.

- For her career, Snead has 19 assists, tied for fifth in school history.  She's just six away from the record of 25 set by Emma Clifton '15.

- Van de Kamp is just the third player in school history to score at least eight goals and eight assists in a season.  The previous two were Joanie Quinn '91 in 1990, with 11 goals and 10 assists, and Victoria Saunders '98, who had eight and eight.

- Between van de Kamp and Snead, this is the second time in school history (also 1990) that W&M has had two players with eight or more assists in the same year.

- The Tribe has been very successful on penalty corners on both ends of the field this year.  On offense, W&M has scored 20 goals on 98 attempts, a 20.41% success rate, while on defense, the Tribe has held opponents to just 14 goals on 100 attempts, an 86% defensive rate.  The Tribe's scoring rate was the best in the CAA by more than three percent, while the defensive rate ranked second by just half a percent.

- So far this season, W&M players have recorded nine multi-goal games, including against Pacific when both Hooper and van de Kamp scored two goals apiece and against James Madison, when it was Hooper and Hughes.

- The Tribe have also been exceedingly generous with the ball, with six multi-assist games on the ledger.  Both Snead and van de Kamp have had two double-assist games.

- Between the 22nd minute against Northeastern and the 24th minute against No. 21 Stanford, the W&M defense shutout its opponents for 285:11.  In that time, the Tribe out-scored its foes 17-0.

- Hooper's hat trick against Towson was the first of her career, and tied her for 15th all-time in a single game at W&M.  She has three multi-goal games this season, and is tied for eighth all-time at W&M with four games of 2+ goals.

- Hughes' hat trick against Brown was her first, and also one of three multi-goal games this season.  She's tied for third in school history with six games of 2+ goals.

- With both Hooper and Hughes scoring hat tricks this season, this is the first year since 2003 that W&M has had multiple hat tricks in the same year.

- Jones was named the CAA Rookie of the Week on Oct. 16, after going 1-1 against Pacific and No. 21 Stanford, and added a second award on Oct. 30, after averaging 8.5 saves per game against No. 20 Virginia and James Madison.

- Hooper was named the CAA Player of the Week on Oct. 9 following her performance against Towson.

- Menges was named the CAA Rookie of the Week on Oct. 2, after scoring two goals including the overtime game-winner against Northeastern.

- Hughes was named the CAA Player of the Week back on Sept. 11, after scoring four goals and an assist and leading W&M to wins over Brown and VCU.

- This season marked the first time that the Tribe has ever played west of the Mississippi River.  The Tribe is 9-7 all-time against teams from California, but before this year, all of those games were held either in Williamsburg or at other neutral sites.

- Head coach Tess Ellis became the third W&M coach to reach 50 wins with the victory over Towson, joining Nancy Porter (1974-1981) and Peel Hawthorne '80 (1987-2013)

- W&M's 4-0 start in CAA play matched the 2004 team as the only 4-0 starts in school history.

- The first seven of the Tribe's games this season were all won with at least four goals, the longest-such streak in school history.  Before the  6-1 win for No. 2 UCONN, the first six games had all been won with four goals each, which is the longest-ever streak of the same winning totals.

- With games against UCONN and Delaware, this is the first time since 1999 that the Tribe has played each of the previous two NCAA Champions in the same season.

- With the cancellation of the Davidson match due to Hurricane Florence, W&M finished the regular season with the fewest number of games played (16) since the 1989 season, which had 15 games before the South Atlantic Conference tournament.  W&M went 10-5 in those 15 games, and finished 12-6 after reaching the conference championship game.

- Over the summer, Christie van de Kamp was named to the Team USA U21 Junior National Team for the second year in a row.

- Both van de Kamp and and senior Jenny McCann (Annandale, Va.) have served as team captains this season.