College Field Hockey-NEC Title Game
Rider University 2, Monmouth University 1
LAWRENCEVILLE--For the second year in a row, the Rider University field hockey team has won the Northeast Conference Tournament Championship, defeating the Monmouth Hawks 2-1 on Saturday at Ben Cohen Field on the Lawrenceville campus.
The Broncs (19-1) will now play Ivy League Champion Princeton (9-7) on November 8 at 1pm for a berth in the NCAA Championship Tournament. The NCAA Play-In game will be hosted by Princeton.
"This was a tremendous game on the part of both teams," said Rider head coach Lori Hussong who has led the Broncs to the NEC playoffs in 12 straight seasons and has a 169-70 record (.707). "We did a good job neutralizing Monmouth's offense and our defense really came up big."
Freshman Eefje Kok (Berkel Enschot, Netherlands) took a pass from junior Jackie Adams (Medford Lakes/Shawnee) and scored her 10th goal to break a scoreless tie with 12 minutes left in the first half.
"Jackie has been great for us all year," said Hussong. "She has gone under the radar with having switched from the front line to defense. When we switched her, that really got the defense going and made us tough to be scored upon. She gave us the quickness that we needed on the back line. And Eefje, she had a great two games with a goal in each. She came up big for us in the whole tournament."
Junior Marlaine Schneider (Feasterville, Pa./Neshaminy) scored her 16th goal of the season with 14 minutes left in the game for the insurance goal.
Schneider entered the game ranked fourth in the nation in points per game, and now has 49 points in 19 games. Her 83 career points are tied for 11th best all-time on Rider's scoring list.
"Marlaine always comes up big for us," Hussong said. "Crunch time, we always know we can depend on her. In the toughest of situations, we can always count on her coming out ahead and she did that today."
"The second goal allowed us to really take control of the game," said senior Virginia Egusquiza who was named to the NEC All-Tournament team and earned NEC Tournament MVP honors. "Even though Monmouth cut the lead to one goal, we always felt we were in control."
Monmouth (15-6) cut the lead to 2-1 with less than two minutes remaining, but that was as close as the Hawks could get.
"They (Monmouth) are an extremely dangerous team and can score at any time," Hussong added.
Rider has now won five NEC Tournament Championships to go along with its six NEC Regular Season Titles in the last 12 years.
This is the fifth NCAA Play-In for the Broncs with Rider losing to the University at Albany in 2010 by a score of 2-1.
Rider enters the NCAA Play-In game on a 15-game winning streak.
"Very quietly, this team is going to go down as one of the best in Rider Field Hockey history," Hussong said. "And that is saying something considering some of the teams that we've had over the past decade. I'm proud that they broke the Rider record for wins (19). This is a special group and we've had so many players come up big and haven't had to rely on just one person. That has been a key to our success."
Rider's 19 wins eclipses the 18 win season posted by the 2004 NEC Champion Rider team that finished 18-3.
The top seed, Rider out-shot Monmouth, the second seed, 21-8, including 12-3 in shots on goal.
The Broncs had 10 corners to Monmouth's four. Rider leads the nation in penalty corners, averaging over 12 per game.
Rider senior goalie Rebecca Lotito (Oceanport/Shore Regional) made two saves.
"Tito is the inspirational leader on the field," Hussong said. "She may not face that many shots but we still need her directing the defense in front of her. The key to our success today was holding Monmouth's top scorers in check and Rebecca was a huge part of that. She came up big when we needed her to."
Rider defeated Monmouth 3-2 during the regular season. Rider and Monmouth have now played 31 times with the Broncs holding a 21-7-3 advantage in the series that began in 1977. The last time Monmouth defeated Rider was in overtime in the semifinals of the 2009 NEC Championship Tournament.
"This feels great," Egusquiza, Rider's all-time leading scorer said. "We worked very hard today and I'm really, really happy. Monmouth has a very good team but we played with a lot of confidence and got the job done."
Also named all-tournament from the Broncs was sophomore Sandra Penas (Barcelona, Spain), Natasha Tukeva (Easton, Pa./Freedom) and junior Marlaine Schneider (Feasterville, Pa./Neshaminy).
This was Rider's 10th NEC Title Game appearance in the 12 years under Hussong and Rider improved to 5-5 in those games.
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