Rookie Maguire helps Saint Joe’s make history
When Lynn Farquhar courted Quinn Maguire to choose Saint Joseph’s University, she didn’t mince words about the project that Maguire would be joining, a program lacking a track record of traditional success that the veteran coach hoped to transform.
In Year 1 of Maguire’s contributions to that process, Farquhar is just as unequivocal when she calls the Academy of Notre Dame grad “a program-changer.”
The evidence abounds. Saturday, the Hawks will journey to the program’s first NCAA tournament when they take on No. 4 seed North Carolina in Charlottesville, Va., at 11:30 a.m., the latest in a raft of firsts accrued in a revolution overseen by Farquhar.
Maguire, the Atlantic 10 Rookie of the Year, has been a vital cog in that building, which began for the Media native and 2016 Daily Times Field Hockey Player of the Year by embracing the challenge Farquhar set for her and her teammates.
“I think it’s really cool,” Maguire said this week. “To be at a program that already has a name for itself and that is already successful is an honor in itself, but it’s something different when you’re helping a program become successful. I think it’s cool that we’re living up to the expectations we set and that our hard work is really paying off.”
“Our freshmen coming in know that the program is changing, so we ask them to create,” Farquhar said. “They’re going to have to do things for the first time. I think Quinn and her fellow teammates bought into that completely, and things are changing.”
The Hawks are ranked No. 15 in the latest Penn Monto/National Field Hockey Coaches Association Coaches Poll, the program’s highest ever placement and just the second season the team has ever been nationally ranked. The Hawks clinched their second Atlantic-10 title with a 3-2 doubleovertime win over Massachusetts last week, Maguire making the all-tournament team. They are 3-2 against ranked opposition, including a 2-1 win over reigning national champion Delaware Oct. 14. The Blue Hens were then ranked No. 8, marking the Hawks’ first win over a top-10 team since 2009.
Maguire has starred in the renaissance. She’s tied for the team lead with 18 goals and has six assists. Her 42 points in 19 games is the 15th-best points-per-game average in the nation at 2.21, a spot behind teammate Anna Willocks. Maguire follows the junior Willocks, the 2017 A-10 Offensive Player of the Year for a third time, and Pepa Serrano as the third straight Hawk named A-10 Freshman of the Year.
And just for historical context, Maguire’s 18 goals are tied with Willocks for the fourth-most productive season in St. Joe’s history, while her 42 points is sixth-best. Which is all to say, lightly, that Maguire has adapted well to the college game.
“She’s come in from the start of the season ready to go, which is tough for freshman,” Farquhar said. “But she’s just played her game, and in doing that, she’s made a tremendous impact on our style of play, our system and the character of team.”
That influence includes Maguire’s knack for particular brilliance on the big stage. Her introduction to college field hockey was with two goals, including the overtime game-winner, to beat rival Villanova. She recorded a pair of hat tricks, including in a 7-2 win over Richmond in the Atlantic 10 semifinals where the Hawks trailed by two goals before storming back.
She scored twice as the Hawks downed No. 22 Rutgers in September, set up Willocks’ equalizer against Delaware and had a goal and assist in routing No. 23 UMass, 5-2, in Amherst to cap the regular season.
“I think playing against big teams brings out the best in our team because we have a lot of good individuals, and playing against the best of the best kind of helps each individual strive to give their all on the field,” Maguire said. “Once everyone does that, it just connects as a whole, and I think we each find a way to use our individual strengths but also help each other by connecting more rather than playing only as individuals.”
Maguire’s season involved a sizeable dose of resilience. She missed two games, requiring stitches to close a gash on a knee. Yet she returned and hardly missed a beat for an 18-3 squad that is peaking at the right time with nine straight wins.
UNC (16-4) ratchets the degree of difficulty higher still. But Maguire and her teammates won’t feel out of place as marked underdogs. And to tackle the challenge, they won’t deviate from the plan that has guided them through a historic postseason.
“I think it’s going to be obviously intimidating in a way because we know how good UNC’s program is,” Maguire said. “But it’s also a good way for us to step up. We have nothing to lose at this point.”