Unbeaten again: Ex-Skipper wins fourth national championship
Sunday was the crowning moment in the field hockey career of Katie George, who helped Middlebury clinch a sixth straight Division III national championship while also completing a perfect 22-0 season for the second time in the last three years.
The final obstacle in the Panthers' way was a familiar foe in Johns Hopkins, with the Blue Jays playing the role of runner-up in both the 2021 and 2022 title games, the latter decided in sudden-death overtime.
In this year's decider, cardiologists were deemed surplus to requirements as Middlebury seized the initiative just 124 seconds after the opening faceoff, Audrey Lazar beating Johns Hopkins goaltender Alexis Loder stick-side to put the Panthers ahead.
Lazar went on to make it a double in the third quarter, getting to a loose ball played into the circle by Caroline Segal before Loder and depositing it past the Blue Jay netminder to extend the Middlebury advantage.
After earlier assisting on Lazar's first tally of the afternoon, George tried to add to the Panther lead early in the final stanza on a breakaway, but Loder closed off the path to goal and the North Kingstown product's subsequent effort missed the target altogether.
It served as a wake-up call for Johns Hopkins to try and find a way back into the contest, as they took five shots in the five minutes that followed George's attempt, with all but one turned aside by the Panthers' KK Newton.
Once the offensive flurry from the Blue Jays had subsided, Middlebury put their foot back on the accelerator in the game's dying minutes, taking the final three shots in an unsuccessful bid to add to what ended up being a 2-0 final score.
Although she was kept goalless for the entirety of the championship weekend, George was nonetheless named to the all-tournament team partially on the strength of her play in earlier action that returned the Panthers to the big stage.
The departing senior potted home twice in a 7-0 demolition of William Smith in the second round and then picked up her last collegiate marker to draw first blood in Middlebury's 3-0 quarterfinal blanking of Messiah.
With 70 goals over the course of her career, George wraps up her time on the
Panther roster as third on the program's all-time ledger, leading players that were impacted by a 2019 rule change that shortened games from 70 to 60 minutes.
More importantly, she was part of an era in which Middlebury exhibited a Max Verstappen-esque will to win in dominating fashion, going a combined 86-2 the last four seasons and running the table twice in that span, also doing so in the 2021 campaign. Ticker Ex-Mariner Brian Vaganek made his 16th tackle of the fall in Holy Cross's football season finale versus Georgetown this past
Saturday, as the Crusaders secured at least a share of the Patriot League championship for the fifth straight season via a 31-10 triumph over the Hoyas.
North Kingstown graduate Ty Pezza played in every game for Brown football this autumn, notching a total of 11 catches on a 5-5 Bears squad that concluded its slate on Saturday with a 38-13 defeat to Dartmouth.
Former Skipper Owen Ennis made 15 appearances for the Army men's soccer team, going the full 90 minutes five times for the 3-9-4 Black Knights and taking four shots without scoring a goal.