BEVERLY, Mass. – Endicott field hockey will be gunning for their third consecutive Commonwealth Coast Conference (CCC) championship when they take the field in 2013, and on Tuesday afternoon they released their slate of 19 regular season games for next fall.
The Gulls are coming off of a 15-5 season, winning the third most games in program history and, for the second straight year, posting a 9-1 mark in CCC play. They have reached the NCAA Tournament in back to back years and made history when Hannah Thornberg (Oakland, Maine) scored the first NCAA goal in Endicott's 4-1 defeat at Utica.
The 2013 season will start with six of the Gull's seven non-conference games, and will also feature home and home meetings with each of the six teams in the CCC.
Endicott will open their season on Friday, August 30th with their sixth meeting against Babson College in the past seven years. Though the Gulls will be looking for their first win against the Beavers since 2008, they will have the advantage of home field for the first time in all six meetings between the two schools.
The Gulls will then hit the road for four of their next five non-conference games, starting at North Shore Cup rivals Salem State on September 5th and including NCAA qualifier UMass Dartmouth on September 11th. The Gulls are 7-3 all-time against the Vikings but have lost the last two meetings, last year by a 3-2 overtime margin in Beverly.
UMass Dartmouth, who the Gulls have beaten in three of their four all-time meetings including a 3-2 overtime win last season, were the Little East Conference (LEC) champions after beating Keene State 1-0 in the title game last season.
A home meeting with Colby-Sawyer on September 7th is sandwiched between those road games, and then the Gulls will travel to UMaine Farmington (Sept. 14th) and Westfield State (Sept. 17th) before returning home to start their CCC schedule on September 21st against Nichols College in a rematch of last season's conference championship game, won 2-1 in overtime by Endicott.
Endicott has won the last five meetings between themselves and the Bison, but it hasn't been easy, as all but one of those games was decided by a single goal.
On September 24th, Endicott travels to Roger Williams for the first ever meeting between the two schools in the Hawk's first season as a varsity field hockey program. They return home two days later and look for their first win ever in five tries against MIT, who posted a 17-2 record last year, won the New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) and blasted Castleton 8-0 to reach the second round of the NCAA tournament. It will be just the second time MIT has come to Beverly, and the first since 2009.
The tilt with the Engineers is the last non-conference game of the season for the Gulls, who travel down the road to Gordon College on September 28th for another North Shore Cup and CCC contest. The Gulls have had the Scots' number with a 12-3 series lead, including victories in the last ten meetings, but it took an overtime winner for Endicott to advance 2-1 in last year's CCC Semifinals.
October opens up with a trip to Newport, R.I. to play Salve Regina, followed by a Homecoming showdown with the University of New England on October 5th. The Nor'easters handed Endicott their only loss in conference last year with a 3-2 victory at Biddeford, but the Gulls won the last three meetings, including an overtime thriller in the 2011 CCC Championship game and a 3-1 result on September 29, 2012 to christen the new turf on North Field.
Western New England will be the final opponent of the first half of the CCC schedule, and the Gulls will travel to Springfield to face the Golden Bears on Saturday, October 12th with an 8-5 record and four straight wins against WNE.
The regular season will finish with the second half of the CCC home affairs, which include games in Beverly against Roger Williams, Gordon and Salve Regina, and trips to Nichols (Oct. 19th) and University of New England (Oct. 30th).
The regular season ends on November 2nd when the Golden Bears come to town in what Endicott hopes will only be a prelude to appearances in the CCC Semifinals on November 6th and Championship game on November 9th.
