Senior forward ties, then passes
Debbie Jones '04
Levins scored the 26th and 27th goals of her career on Tuesday
afternoon against Saint Anselm, first tying, and then setting, the
program record.
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RINDGE, N.H. (October 4,
2011) – Senior forward Tia Levins (Manchester,
Maine) scored twice on Tuesday afternoon to establish a
new program record with the 27th goal of her career as the Franklin
Pierce University field hockey team notched a 3-1 win over Saint
Anselm in Northeast-10 Conference play at Sodexo Field. Senior
midfielder Kim Jaksina (Townsend,
Mass.) notched a pair of assists in the win for Franklin
Pierce.
With the win, Franklin Pierce
improves to 5-6 (2-1 Northeast-10), while Saint Anselm falls to 3-8
(1-4 Northeast-10).
After the opening portions of the
game went scoreless, Levins struck for her ninth goal of the season
with 15:17 to play in the first half. Off of a corner, the Ravens
moved the ball to Jaksina on the left side. Jaksina rifled it
towards the net and Levins got a stick on it en route to redirect
the ball into the back of the cage and give the Ravens a 1-0
lead.
The goal was the 26th of Levins'
career, which matched the program record, originally set by Debbie
Jones '04 from 2000-03. Perhaps more impressively, all but seven of
Levins' goals have come since the beginning of her junior
season.
Franklin Pierce would make it 2-0
just 2:42 before the halftime break on a very similar play. This
time, Jaksina wound and fired the ball towards the cage from the
top of the circle off a penalty corner, and senior forward
Lauren
L'Heureux (Sanford, Maine) deflected it behind the
goalkeeper for her third goal of the season.
Franklin Pierce dominated play in
the first half, to the tune of a 9-2 edge in shot attempts and a
5-2 edge in penalty corners.
Levins rounded out the Ravens
scoring on the afternoon and made the program's career goals record
her own just shy of 20 minutes into the second stanza. Fellow
senior forward Danielle Dolan (West
Brookfield, Mass.) crossed the ball into the goalmouth
from the right wing. Levins was waiting in front of the left post
to bang home the one-timer and give Franklin Pierce a 3-0 lead.
Beyond being the career
goal-scoring record-setter, the goal was significant to Levins'
2011 campaign as well. It was her 10th of the season, giving Levins
just the fifth double-digit goal-scoring season in school history.
She became the first player in program history to record
double-digit goals in two separate seasons, let alone back-to-back
seasons. It left Levins just two goals behind her own program
record in that department, as she scored 12 times in 2010. The
Ravens have seven games remaining in the 2011 regular season.
Saint Anselm picked up its lone
goal of the contest 5:07 after the second Levins goal to create the
3-1 final. Freshman forward Biffy Grout scored her first goal of
the season by finishing from the left post off a feed from the
right side by junior forward Kristina Katsikis after the Hawks
generated a 2-on-1 down low against the goalkeeper.
For the second straight game, the
Franklin Pierce defense held the opposition to just three shots on
goal, leaving the Ravens with a 7-3 edge in that department. In
total shot attempts, the backline allowed just six, as Franklin
Pierce finished with a 15-6 advantage.
Senior goalkeeper Brittany Nyzio
(Attleboro, Mass.) made two saves against those three
shots on target to come away with the win (4-4) in front of the net
for Franklin Pierce. Already the program's all-time leader in wins,
Nyzio becomes the first goalkeeper in school history to reach the
20-win plateau.
Junior goalkeeper Megan Sullivan
stopped three of the six shots on her cage and took the loss (3-8)
between the pipes for Saint Anselm, before being replaced shortly
after the third Franklin Pierce goal. Freshman Jessica Snow played
the final 10:31 and stopped the only shot on her goal.
The Ravens return to the field on
Thursday, Oct. 6, when they travel to Merrimack for a Northeast-10
Conference contest. Game time is set for 4 p.m. at Martone-Mejail
Field in North Andover, Mass. Franklin Pierce next plays at home on
Saturday, Oct. 8 against Massachusetts Lowell at 1 p.m.
For more information on Franklin
Pierce Athletics, please visit the official website of Franklin
Pierce Athletics (http://athletics.franklinpierce.edu). Also be
sure to follow the Ravens through the Department of Athletics'
official Facebook page
(http://www.facebook.com/FranklinPierceRavens), its YouTube channel
(http://www.youtube.com/franklinpiercesports) and its Twitter feed
(http://twitter.com/FPUathletics).
