Six Cavaliers Earn All-South Region Honors
Nov. 27, 2017
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – Six Virginia field hockey players were named to the 2017 Longstreth/NFHCA Division I All-South Region teams, as announced on Monday (Nov. 27) by the National Field Hockey Coaches Association.
Freshmen forward Pien Dicke (Den Haag, Netherlands) and senior midfielder Tara Vittese (Cherry Hill, N.J.) were named to the first team, while senior back Nadine de Koning (Laren, Netherlands), redshirt junior goalkeeper Carrera Lucas (Brooklandville, Md.), freshman back Rachel Robinson (Mount Joy, Pa.) and sophomore back Dominique van Slooten (Den Haag, Netherlands) earned second team honors.
A four-time first-team All-South Region honoree, Vittese ranked second in the country in goals per game (1.25) and points per game (3.20) this season as well as finishing in the top-10 in assists at 0.70 per game. The two-time NFHCA National Player of the Year and ACC Offensive Player of the Year finished her collegiate career with 195 points, third-most in program history. Vittese also ranked third with 51 career assists and fifth with 72 goals.
Dicke, the ACC Freshman of the year and first-team All-ACC honoree, averaged 1.05 goals per game and 2.45 points per game, both of which ranked second in the conference and nationally in the top 10. The two-time ACC Offensive Player of the Week set the single-season record for hat tricks by tallying five this season, including scoring three goals in the season-opener against Fairfield, and tallied five game-winning goals in her rookie campaign.
The Cavaliers had four members of the defense earn second-team honors with Lucas and van Slooten each earning the accolade for the second straight year. Lucas, Robinson, de Koning and van Slooten were integral parts of a defensive unit that tallied seven shutouts this season, including a streak of 371 minutes without allowing a goal, a streak that spanned six games after beginning in the first half of the William & Mary game on Sept. 15 and included the four shutouts of Richmond, Boston College, Pacific and Wake Forest. Additionally, de Koning was tied with Vittese for the ACC lead in assists this season, tallying 14. Lucas played every game in goal this season for the Cavaliers, stopping 71.0 percent of the shots she faces with a 1.75 goal-against average.
The Longstreth/NFHCA Division I Regional Players of the Year will be announced on Tuesday (Nov. 28), with the All-America squad coming out on Dec. 5 and the National Player of the Year on Dec. 14.
The All-Region squads consisted of 63 seniors, 49 juniors, 25 sophomores and 23 freshmen, based on year of eligibility during the 2017 season with 160 student-athletes receiving either first or second-team recognition across the five regions. Seventeen schools had at least four student-athletes make the All-Region squad, led by national champion Connecticut with eight in the Mideast Region. Penn State had seven selections in the Mideast, while schools with six honorees included Princeton (Mid-Atlantic), Maryland (Mid-Atlantic), Syracuse (Mideast), Virginia (South) and Michigan (West). Saint Joseph’s (Mid-Atlantic), Duke (South) and Louisville (West) all had five honorees, while schools with four honorees were Delaware (Mid-Atlantic), Massachusetts (Northeast), Albany (Northeast), Harvard (Northeast), North Carolina (South), Northwestern (West) and Stanford (West).