The William & Mary field hockey team returns to the friendly confines of Busch Field this weekend for a pair of matches to close out the home schedule.  The Tribe hosts No. 5 Louisville on Thursday, Oct. 24, at 6 p.m., before taking on CAA-rival Northeastern on Sunday at 1 p.m.  Before Sunday's match, there will be a brief ceremony recognizing W&M's six seniors as they play their final home game after four outstanding seasons.

Thursday Live Stats
Sunday Live Stats

Scouting the Tribe
W&M survived two pulse-pounding road matches last week, winning 3-2 over both Drexel and Lafayette, to extend its winning streak to six and improve to 9-5 overall, 3-0 in the Colonial Athletic Association.  Senior captain Christie van de Kamp (Midlothian, Va.) retained the team lead in points with 18, on six goals and six assists, while classmate Cassidy Goodwin (Gloucester, Va.) was named the CAA Player of the Week after scoring four goals in the last week.  Goodwin leads the team with a career-high seven goals, and a third senior, captain Annie Snead (Midlothian, Va.), matches van de Kamp with six assists.  On defense, sophomore Kimi Jones (Virginia Beach, Va.) has played the majority of minutes in goal with a 1.89 GAA and 36 saves on a .655 save percentage, while senior Morgan Connor (Bedford, N.Y.) has appeared in 12 games with a 2.09 GAA and 15 saves on a .625 percentage.

Scouting the Cardinals
Louisville is ranked No. 5 in the country, and winners of three in a row to improved to 13-2 overall, 2-2 in the ACC.  The Cardinals are led in scoring by Bethany Russ, on nine goals and five assists, while Mercedes Pastor has eight goals and Madison Walsh seven.  On defense, Hollyn Barr has played the vast majority of minutes with a 1.02 GAA and 32 saves on a .696 save percentage.

Scouting the Huskies
Northeastern is 8-5 overall and 1-1 in the CAA after winning two matches last weekend.  The Huskies are led in scoring by the favorite for both Rookie and Player of the Year in the CAA, freshman Lauren Rowe, with 13 goals and 10 assists, while Camille O'Connor has eight goals and Kasidy Anderson and Alli Meehan have seven apiece.  In goal, Julia Gluyas is the probable starter, with a 2.79 GAA and 56 saves on a .636 save percentage.

The Series
- Louisville leads the all-time series with W&M, 4-1, with the Tribe's only win coming by a 7-0 score in the first meeting back in 1995.  The teams last met in 2014, when the No. 11-ranked Cardinals won 4-3 in overtime.

- Northeastern also leads in its series with W&M, 11-9, though the Tribe has won the last four in a row.  That included a 3-2 overtime victory last fall up in Massachusetts, and a 2-0 shutout in the CAA Semifinals.

Notes
- All five field players in the senior class - van de Kamp, Goodwin, Snead, Woodard Hooper (Williamsburg, Va.), and Cata Days (Buenos Aires, Argentina) have scored a goal this season, and all but Goodwin have also scored at least one assists.  Added to the mix is Connor, who has played a significant amount of time in goal, leading to one of the most impactful senior classes in recent memory.

- Coming into the week, the W&M senior class has a four-year record of 43-30 (.589), the most wins for any senior class since 2006 (45) and the best winning percentage since 2004 (.654).  They are one of just 21 four-year classes (out of 92 total) to collect 43 or more wins during their time on campus.

- The Tribe started 3-0 in conference play for the third year in a row, and the fifth time overall.  Before 2017, the only other times W&M has accomplished that feat was in 2004 and 2005.

- A win on Sunday would give W&M back-to-back 4-0 starts in CAA play, and just the third-such start in school history along with the 2004 season.

- Goodwin was named the CAA Player of the Week on Oct. 22, after scoring four goals in two wins over Drexel and Lafayette.

- W&M's current six-game winning streak is one of just six active streaks in the country six games or longer.

- The current winning streak is only one of just 13 six-game winning streaks in school history, and the longest since 2017.

- At Davidson, Snead picked up her 26th career assist to pass Emma Clifton '15 as W&M's all-time assists maker.

- The Tribe leads the nation with 84.2% (16 of 19) of field players who have seen action this year having scored either a goal or an assist.  Only two other teams, Michigan (15 of 18, 83.3%) and Providence (13 of 16, 81.3%), have over 80% scoring, and only two other teams (Maryland, with 22 total players, and Saint Joseph's, with 24) have had more players in absolute terms score a point with 17 each.

- Van de Kamp and Snead (as an alternate) were both picked to represent W&M at the Victory Sports Tours/NFHCA Senior Game this season.  W&M's two picks were the most since 2005, and ranked the Tribe as one of just 11 teams in the nation to have two players chosen.

- With the win over Drexel, W&M currently has a six-game winning streak over conference opponents dating back to last season.  This is just the eighth conference winning-streak of 5+ games in program history, and the first since the 2004 team went 7-0 during the course of the season.  The school record streak is eight games in a row, back in 1989.  After losing the first conference game of the season to Old Dominion, the Tribe won the final six games in the regular season and two in the tournament before facing the top-ranked Monarchs in the championship game again.

- Snead was named the CAA Player of the Week on Oct. 9, after scoring three goals and three assists in wins over James Madison and Georgetown.  That included a career-best six points, two goals and two assists, in the Tribe's 7-2 win over the Hoyas.

- Freshman Lily Saunders (Mount Joy, Pa.) was named the CAA Rookie of the Week on Oct. 2, after scoring the Tribe's first goal against Vermont.  That sparked W&M on to score three unanswered for its second win in a row.  Saunders' goal was the first of her career, and the first for a freshman this season.

- W&M is 129-1-1 (0.989) in games in which it scores at least five goals.  The Tribe has won 118 in a row in those games, dating back to the 1945 season.

- Van de Kamp's four penalty strokes made not only leads all players in the NCAA this season, but is also leads all teams so far in 2019.  North Carolina has also scored four penalty stroke goals from multiple players, while the Tar Heels, Stanford, Maine, and Providence have all taken five attempts.

- Junior Haley Hopkins (Springfield, Va.) scored the winning goal against both Monmouth and Vermont, which were her first two collegiate goals.

- Since the start of the 2017 season, W&M is 24-10 (0.706) in games decided by one or two goals.  That includes an 13-7 mark (.650) in one-goal games, and 11-3 (.786) in two-goal games.

- Six of W&M's opponents appear in the latest NFHCA rankings, including four in the top-12.  North Carolina remains at No. 1, with Duke and Louisville at Nos. 4-5.  Delaware is ranked No. 12, Old Dominion No. 19, and Monmouth at No. 21.

- Woodard Hooper scored the game-winner against Georgetown, her 11th career game-winner.  That ranks her third among active players in Division I, behind only Michigan senior Meg Dowthwaite (with 16) and Stanford junior Corinne Zanolli (13).  Hooper also ranks tied for fourth all-time at W&M in game-winning goals, and is tied for 12th in school history with 28 career goals so far.

- This year marks the first time that W&M has ever been picked as the pre-season favorite in the CAA.

- Senior captain Christie van de Kamp is the first player in the roughly decade-long pre-season CAA voting to be named the Pre-Season Player of the Year for W&M.  She was joined on the pre-season all-conference team by fellow seniors Annie Snead, Cassidy Goodwin, and Woodard Hooper.  Sophomore Cara Menges (Richmond, Va.) was named honorable-mention as well.

- Head coach Tess Ellis is in her 24th season at W&M and seventh as head coach, with a 65-65 career record (25-14 in CAA games).

- Sophomore Kimi Jones is the reigning Colonial Athletic Association and VaSID State Rookie of the Year, after going 10-3 with 58 saves and a 1.96 GAA as a freshman in 2018.

- Freshman Amber Bode (Glen Ellyn, Ill.) is just the third player from Illinois to ever play for W&M, and the first to do so since Jackie Adams in 1943.

- Another freshman, Tabby Billingham (Dallinghoo, Suffolk, England) is the third Englishwoman in team history, and the first to hail from Suffolk.  She joins her teammate junior Caitlin MacLean (Devizes, Wiltshire, England), as well as Jill Tester (Brighton, Sussex, England) who played as an exchange grad student in 1952.