The Fairfield University field hockey team was selected as the unanimous preseason favorite in the Northeast Conference Coaches Poll. Head coach Jackie Kane and the team are honored to be selected as the preseason favorite. Coach Kane shared, “The team has high expectations for not only their field hockey performance, but for continued academic excellence.”
This achievement is well-deserved for the Stags, as they are coming off an electric 2019 season, capturing the regular-season and tournament titles. Coach Kane disclosed, “We have been working hard to uphold this title and be ready to compete this spring.”
Coach Kane begins her 26th season with the Fairfield University field hockey program, serving as the team’s head coach since 1995. Kane and her coaching staff were honored as the Coaching Staff of the Year by the Northeast Conference, selected by vote of the NEC coaches. The decorated coach has won more games than any other Fairfield field hockey coach, coming into this season with 207 victories.
In 2019, the Stags tied the program record for seven consecutive wins in the regular season, and eventually soared past the record with 12 straight victories. They finished with a 16-2 record during the regular season, and ended the season with an overall mark of 19-3. The team was ranked in the national poll throughout the 2019 campaign, reaching as high as 23 in the nation before settling into the 24th position by the end of the regular season. The team is hungry for a chance to defend their title and make history once again, starting on Thursday, March 18 at Sacred Heart University.
Fairfield will play a single round-robin schedule that will include seven matches over five weeks. The NEC Championship match will be played the week of April 19-24 with the number one seed hosting the number two seed to determine the conference’s automatic qualifier to the National Collegiate Athletic Association tournament.
“We are all pushing each other to win another conference tournament and return to the NCAAs,” added Kane. “We are excited about who we are as a team, and how far we can go.”
The Stags will hit University Field, right on Fairfield’s campus, to face off against the University at Albany Great Danes on Tuesday, March 9 at 3:00 p.m. This will be their first competition in over a year, since they got eliminated in the first round of the 2019 NCAA Championship by the University of Connecticut Huskies.
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