College of Southern Md. fall sports teams shine
Men’s soccer eliminated, while women’s soccer, volleyball still alive; Porterfield honored
With the fall sports sea- son winding to a close this week for the various Col- lege of Southern Mary- land squads, not all of the Hawks athletes will be too eager to turn in their cleats or tennis shoes before Halloween.
Among the bright spots for the CSM women’s soc- cer team this fall has been sophomore Alexis Porter- field, who was selected as the Maryland Junior Col- lege Athletic Conference as one of its student-athletes of the month for September 2016. The Welcome native scored eight goals and added six assists in six games to propel the Hawks to a 5-1 start, including a hat trick in the victory over Corn- ing Community College of New York.
“Alexis has a rare mix of talent, ability and work ethic that you seldom find present in one player,” CSM first-year head wom- en’s soccer coach Barry McGrellis said. “Her contri- bution to the team in terms of goals and assists this year has almost never been a consequence of being in the right place at the right time, but instead the result of her own hard work.”
Porterfield has continued to contribute to the Hawks success in October and given her rookie coach an added appreci- ation for her abilities and her instinctive ways of finding the net.
“She is a nightmare for defenders and never stops pressuring opponents on the field, forcing mistakes upon which her and her teammates have continually capitalized,” McGrel- lis added. “I couldn’t be more proud of her this season. She took the high pressure concept we tried to adopt as a team and embodied it as one player. She is an excellent exam- ple to the younger players of where hard work can take you. Of course, it helps that she could play every game blindfolded and still know where the goal is.”
The CSM women’s soc- cer team (9-6, 3-5 MDJU- CO) played Thursday in the NJCAA Region XX tournament semifinals versus CCBC-Essex in a third-seed versus sec- ond-seed matchup. The winner plays top-seeded Harford for the title at 11 a.m. Saturday at CCBCDundalk. The Hawks won their last three regular season games, defeating Cecil 6-0 and Frederick 5-1 before edg- ing Washington Adven- tist, 3-2, on one goal each from Porterfield, Eliza- beth Schwenk, a Northern High School graduate from Dunkirk, and Julia Lesko, a McDonough High School graduate from La Plata.
The CSM volleyball team (15-7, 10-1) is cer- tainly peaking at the right time.
The Hawks went 7-2 in October and won their last five matches capped by a 3-1 victory over Allegany on Oct. 24.
In that match, freshman setter Kiana Bopp (a Northern High School graduate from Chesa- peake Beach) recorded 34 assists, outside hitters Ashley Hall (a La Plata High School graduate from Hughesville) and Taylor Hagen (a Hunting- town High School graduate from Huntingtown) each posted 12 kills. Bopp, Brandie Todd (a La Plata High School graduate from Charlotte Hall) and Elizabeth Ravancho (a Westlake High School graduate from Waldorf) each had nine digs.
The CSM men’s soccer team (7-7-1, 6-5-1) saw its 2016 season come to an end in the Region XX tournament semifinals on Wednesday. The Hawks, the third seed, defeated sixth-seeded Hagerstown 4-2 in the quarterfinals on Saturday before being upended by second-seeded Frederick, 2-0, in the semifinals.
The CSM women’s cross country team will compete in the Region XX championships on Saturday morning. The Hawks did not score in meets at Hood College on Oct. 15 and at Goucher College on Oct. 8. On each occasion, they were one of five teams that did not score.