Mercy’s Spinazzola Named ECC Coach of the Year as Six Mavericks Make All-Conference
What a week to be a Mercy Maverick. Top seed, a share of the first ever East Coast Conference regular-season title, a seven-game winning streak, and now the awards have followed.
Head coach Marissa Spinazzola has been named the ECC Coach of the Year, and six Mavericks made the All-Conference teams, announced by the conference office on Tuesday. Three on the First Team, three on the Second. Nobody in the ECC had more.
Spinazzola is in her sixth season at Mercy, and this is the year it all clicked. The Mavericks are 9-7 overall and 8-2 in the ECC, and they finished the regular season by winning eight straight league games. A programme-record nine wins, a first ECC title share, and the top seed for a championship that didn’t even exist a year ago. Mercy led the ECC in defensive saves, save percentage and shot percentage this season. That’s a coach’s team, through and through.
McClure leads the First Team
The headline name on the First Team is goalkeeper Kaylise McClure, and honestly the numbers do the talking. The junior has 197 saves this season at a .845 save percentage, with three shutouts and a 2.27 goals-against average. She passed 200 career saves against Adelphi in September and 300 against Dominican in October, and she set a single-season school record for saves along the way.
She’s second in the country in saves per game at 12.31 and third nationally in save percentage. Her career high is 29 saves against Pace on 3 September, and she’s had nine games with double-digit saves. She was named ECC Goalkeeper of the Week four times. This is her first All-Conference honour, which tells you how much she’s grown this year.
Charlotte Sabert joins her on the First Team. The junior forward is tied for the team lead with seven goals and has 16 points, and she was ECC Player of the Week twice. She scored twice in the win over D’Youville on 24 October and got the winner against Dominican on 17 October.
The third First Team pick is freshman Addison Testa, who leads the team with 17 points on six goals and five assists. She scored twice in the win at Molloy on Saturday that sealed the regular-season title share, and she got the winner against D’Youville too. A freshman leading a title-winning side in points is no small thing.
Second Team depth
The Second Team picks show how deep this side runs. Senior Alyssa Benvengo is tied with Sabert on seven goals and has a team-high three game-winning goals, including winners against Molloy and Roberts Wesleyan. Junior Madison Brefka has started all 16 games and has five goals and two assists. Sophomore Gwendolyn Smith has two goals, three assists and seven defensive saves, second in the ECC and fourth in the country in that last one.
All six are first-time All-Conference picks. That’s the story here, really. Not one star dragging a team along, but a whole squad stepping up in the same season.
Tonight’s the real test
The timing couldn’t be better, or the pressure higher. Mercy host D’Youville at 1pm ET today in the ECC semi-final at Dobbs Ferry, with the final on Saturday. The awards are lovely. But nobody at Mercy will remember Coach of the Year if the season ends tonight. Win, and the party keeps going. Lose, and it’s a footnote.
For our money, Mercy should win this. Seven straight, home field, the best goalkeeper in the conference. But D’Youville have already beaten them once this season, and semi-finals have a way of ignoring form. That’s what makes tonight worth watching.
