The William & Mary field hockey team, after an extended run of four road games, returns to the friendly confines of Busch Field on Sunday to start a streak of five-straight home games.  That starts off with four games in seven days, beginning on Sunday, Sept. 29, hosting Vermont at 11 a.m.  The Tribe will also host Longwood on Tuesday night at 6 p.m., with live stats for both matches available on TribeAthletics.com.

Sunday Live Stats
Tuesday Live Stats

Scouting the Tribe
W&M is 2-4 on the season, after beating Monmouth 3-1 last weekend.  Senior captain Christie van de Kamp (Midlothian, Va.) leads the Tribe with three goals, all on penalty strokes, with senior Woodard Hooper (Williamsburg, Va.), two, and junior Haley Hopkins (Springfield, Va.), one, accounting for the other half of W&M's scores.  On defense, senior Cassidy Goodwin (Gloucester, Va.) has a conference-best two defensive saves, and in goal, Kimi Jones (Virginia Beach, Va.) has the majority of minutes with a 2.73 GAA and 22 saves on a .667 percentage.  Senior Morgan Connor (Bedford, N.Y.) has also played very well in her 139 minutes, carrying a 2.16 GAA and 11 saves on a .688 percentage.

Scouting the Catamounts
Vermont is 4-4 on the year, after beating Longwood 1-0 on Friday afternoon.  Clodagh Ferry and Kate Hall each have four goals and an assist to lead the Catamounts offensively, while on defense, Sierra Espeland has played every minute in goal with a 2.0 GAA and 34 saves on a .680 save percentage.

Scouting the Lancers
Longwood was on the other end of that Friday game, falling to 4-3 overall.  Against common opponents this year, the Lancers lost to Monmouth 3-1, and beat Long Island 4-0.  Offensively, Longwood is led by Karly Harwood, with four goals, while Sophia Loscher (3), Olivia Wawrzyniak (3), and Luna Lopez (2) have all also found the back of the net multiple times.  In goal, Katie Wyman has played every minut with a 0.86 GAA and 42 saves on an .875 percentage.

The Series
- W&M is 2-2 all-time against Vermont, with the series also tied 1-1 in Williamsburg.  The last meeting was all the way back in 2010, a 4-2 win for the Catamounts.

- The Tribe first played Longwood in the roaring twenties, a 9-4 win in 1927.  The Lancers had the series advantage until the AIAW era began in the mid-1970s, but since the 1975 season, W&M leads 21-1-2, and 24-17-4 overall.  The last time the teams played was 2012, a 4-2 win for the Tribe, who is on a 10-match winning streak dating to 1982.

News and Notes
- Van de Kamp's three penalty strokes made not only leads all players in the NCAA this season, but is also more than any other team has made total through last weekend.  Only Maryland (4) has taken more penalty stroke attempts on the year so far.

- Hopkins scored the winning goal against Monmouth, her first collegiate goal.

- Senior captain Annie Snead (Midlothian, Va.) picked up an assist against the Hawks, and is now tied for third all-time at W&M with 21 career assists.

- W&M is 9-4 all-time in games played on Sept. 29, and 8-5-1 on Oct. 1.

- Since the start of the 2017 season, W&M is 20-9 (0.690) in games decided by one or two goals.  That includes an 11-6 mark (.647) in one-goal games, and 9-3 (.750) in two-goal games.

- In the first RPI release of the year, the Tribe was rated No. 35 overall, and third in the CAA.

- With games against No. 1 North Carolina and No. 2 Duke already in the books, as well as tough contests with ODU, VCU, Long Island, and Monmouth, W&M has the eighth-hardest schedule played in the NCAA this season.  
 
- Six of W&M's opponents appear in the latest NFHCA rankings, including three in the top-10.  North Carolina and Duke remain 1-2, with Louisville at No. 6, Delaware at No. 12, and Old Dominion ranked No. 22.  Monmouth also entered the rankings despite its loss to the Tribe, checking in at No. 25.  Combined, those teams were 35-7 through last weekend's games.

- Hooper scored the game-winner against Long Island, her 10th career game-winner.  That ranks her third among active players in Division I, behind only Michigan senior Meg Dowthwaite (with 15) and Stanford junior Corinne Zanolli (11).  Hooper also ranks fifth all-time at W&M in game-winning goals, and is 13th in school history with 25 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.

- Only three players from the CAA's top-10 in assists in 2018 return this year, all from W&M - all three were voted team captains this year.  Senior Annie Snead had 12 helpers to break the school record that had stood since 1979, and classmate Christie van de Kamp had nine assists, becoming just the second player since 1990 to score eight goals and nine assists in a single year.  Sophomore Cara Menges added in six assists along with her three goals, to earn CAA All-Rookie honors.

- Head coach Tess Ellis is in her 24th season at W&M and seventh as head coach, with a 58-64 career record (22-14 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.

- A season-high three freshmen earned starts against Monmouth, with Billingham joining Lily Saunders (Mount Joy, Pa.) and Sally Snead (Midlothian, Va.) in the first eleven on the field.