William & Mary head coach
Tess Ellis announced the 2021 Tribe field hockey schedule today, featuring a six-game regular season with an eye towards qualifying for the Colonial Athletic Association tournament and then onward to the NCAA Championships. With the shortened circumstances of the school year, the Tribe will only face conference opponents in the regular season.
W&M's schedule begins on Friday, March 19, with a road trip to face James Madison at 5 p.m. This will be the 83rd meeting all-time between the programs, and the Tribe is currently riding a three-game winning streak in the series. W&M won 5-2 at home in the fall of 2019, and has won three in a row in Harrisonburg, all by one-goal margins in overtime. The Dukes return four all-conference players from the team that went 8-11 in 2019 and reached the CAA Semifinal.
Next up is a home game at Busch Field on Thursday, March 25, at 5:30 p.m. against Drexel. Sophomore Isabel Jacobs earned CAA All-Rookie honors in 2019 to help lead the Dragons to a 4-14 mark. W&M has won four in a row and five of the last six against Drexel, including a 3-2 win on the road in 2019 and 2-1 in overtime the last time the two teams met in Williamsburg. In fact, four of the last five meetings have been decided by a single goal. The match-up with the Dragons will also be the home debut of the new Tribe Field Hockey Center, which was completed in the fall of 2020.
W&M hits the road on Saturday, April 3, to face Hofstra at 1 p.m. in Hempstead, N.Y. The Tribe has won four in a row and seven of the last eight against the Pride, including four in a row on Long Island. Hofstra was greatly improved in 2019 with an 8-10 mark, led by second-team All-CAA junior Cami Larsson, who ranked among the league leaders with 11 goals and 25 points.
The Tribe's busiest weekend comes April 9-11, hosting a pair of games at Busch Field. On Friday night at 6 p.m., W&M welcomes Towson to town, before taking on reigning league champions Delaware on Sunday at 1 p.m. The Tigers went 3-16 in 2019 and return three All-CAA performers, their biggest haul of honors since 2008. W&M has won the last eight meetings with Towson, including 3-1 in 2019 and 6-0 in the last meeting in Williamsburg in 2018. Delaware, meanwhile, won the CAA title for the sixth time in seven years in 2019 at 16-4 overall, and finished the season ranked No. 10 nationally. The Blue Hens return six All-CAA performers, led by senior and first-team All-American Femke Strien. The series has been tilted toward Delaware recently, winners of 11 of the last 12 meetings, with the Tribe's most recent win coming in overtime in the 2018 CAA Championship game.
The final game of the regular season is scheduled for Friday, April 16, at Northeastern at 3 p.m. The Huskies have been one of W&M's most spirited rivals recently, including in 2019 when the Tribe won 2-1 in overtime during the regular season, before Northeastern returned the favor with a 1-0 win in the CAA Semifinals. W&M has won five of the last six meetings, but trails the overall series 10-12 dating back to 1983. Northeastern returns three All-CAA honorees from 2019, including Rookie of the Year Lauren Rowe, off a team that went 11-8 overall.
The CAA Tournament will take the top four teams after the regular season to Newark, Del. this spring, on the weekend of April 22-24. W&M won its first-ever CAA championship in 2018, and has made the conference field each of the last four seasons. The winner of the league championship will earn an automatic berth into the NCAA Championships, which are being cut from 18 to 12 teams this year. The top four seeds will earn a bye to the quarterfinals, with both the first-round and quarterfinal-round games coming the weekend of April 30-May 2, while the semifinals and finals are being held May 7-9 at the University of North Carolina.
William & Mary went 12-7 in 2019, including a double-overtime upset of No. 5 Louisville. The Tribe returns 16 veterans from that squad, including all-region juniors
Kimi Jones (Virginia Beach, Va.) and
Cara Menges (Richmond, Va.), as well as three more All-CAA veterans in senior
Melanie Strik (Den Haag, The Netherlands),
Jorja Morgan (Wakerley, QLD, Australia), and
Sally Snead (Midlothian, Va.). W&M also adds seven newcomers to the squad this spring, including a transfer from Boston College in sophomore
Lauren Curran (Media, Pa.) and the 2019
Washington Post All-Met Player of the Year in freshman
Maddie McGaughey (Vienna, Va.).
W&M has not made a determination regarding attendance at home events during the spring season. When made, a decision will be based on state and local guidelines.
