MAC Week 8 Honours: Two Argentines Run the Show for Miami
The Mid-American Conference handed out its Week 8 field hockey honours this week, and two of the three winners are from the same country, the same team, and roughly the same production line.
Justi Intzes, Miami’s sophomore forward from Mendoza, Argentina, took the offensive award after scoring twice in each game of a two-win weekend, against Bellarmine and Ball State. Four goals in two games is a good weekend anywhere. In conference play, it’s the kind that moves a season.
The goalkeeper award went to her teammate and compatriot. Macarena Gonzalez, a sophomore from Tucumán, played seven quarters across the two wins without conceding. A hundred and five minutes of shutout hockey, and Miami’s weekend was built on it as much as on Intzes’ goals.
The defensive honour went north, to App State’s Sophia Baxter. The senior scored four goals across two wins herself, including a hat-trick in a 5-0 shutout of Central Michigan and the late equaliser that forced overtime against Kent State. When your defender is outscoring most forwards, the award picks itself.
Miami’s Sunday was the loud one, by the way. They beat Ball State 10-0, while UMass put eleven past Bellarmine without reply. The MAC isn’t the Big Ten, but weekends like that are why the conference keeps sending awkward teams into the national picture. The bigger college story this week is Thursday’s No. 1 v No. 2 showdown, and Tuesday’s full round-up is live too.
