Lacrosse: Cadets rank high on final NCAA statistics
NORTHFIELD, Vt. – Norwich University's men's and women's lacrosse squads each earned high honors on the recently-released final set of NCAA Division III statistics.
Coach Neal Anderson's men's team, 2012 Great Northeast Athletic Conference tournament runners-up, highlighted the numbers by leading the nation in man-down defense. The Cadets had an 89.5 percentage of success. Other strong rankings came from sophomore faceoff specialist/midfielder Nate Fortezzo (Branford, Ct.) who was third in face-off winning percentage (68 percent), while the team was also ninth in scoring defense (6.06 gpg allowed) and 10th in faceoff win percentage (64.1).
Coach Beth VanParys' women's team, 2012 Great Northeast Athletic Conference champions and national tournament qualifiers, was just as impressive on the final report. The Maroon and Gold had senior midfielder Kacey Abbriano (Hicksville, N.Y.) ranked third in ground balls (5.47 pg) and 15th in caused turnovers (2.33 pg) and senior goalkeeper Meghan Kennedy (Lowell, Mass.) listed 23rd in goals-against average (8.60). On the team side, NU was eighth in ground balls (27.47 pg) and winning percentage (86.7), 12th in scoring margin (plus 6.93 gpg) 20th in scoring defense (8.4 gpg allowed), and 21st in scoring (15.33 gpg).
