A Defender Won the Offensive Award With a Corner Hat-Trick: America East and Atlantic 10 Honours
The best weekly-awards story in college hockey this week comes from New Hampshire, where a defender won an offensive award by scoring a hat-trick of penalty corners.
Rena Pistilli is a sophomore back for UMass Lowell from Lambaré, Paraguay. On Friday she converted three corner attempts in a 4-0 conference road win at New Hampshire, her first career hat-trick, and America East had no real choice: the Offensive Player of the Week award went to a defender. Lowell play Maine on Friday in their home finale, which sets up the other half of this story nicely.
America East: Halkes again, and an Albany double
Maine’s freshman goalkeeper Annabel Halkes, from Haarlem in the Netherlands, took the goalkeeping award for the fifth time this season: a career-high 12-save shutout in a 3-0 win over Bryant, her fifth shutout of the year, plus three more saves against Northeastern. On Friday she faces Pistilli’s Lowell. Corner specialist against the conference’s form keeper. Good luck picking that one.
UAlbany took the other two awards. Senior defender Mara Küskes anchored a defence that allowed two goals in 120 minutes across wins over Vermont and Holy Cross and added three assists, her third defensive award of the season. Freshman Quinty Reumer scored in both wins to take the rookie award, also her third of the season.
Atlantic 10: Kluyt runs Saint Joseph’s week
Saint Joseph’s senior Milou Kluyt, from Goirle in the Netherlands, took the A-10 offensive award with three goals and an assist in a 2-0 week: a five-point day in an 11-0 rout of Lock Haven, then the penalty-stroke goal that put the Hawks ahead in a 4-3 win over Villanova. She leads Saint Joseph’s with seven goals.
The defensive award went to a scorer too. VCU’s Ana Afonso, from Córdoba in Argentina, scored VCU’s first goal and then the overtime winner as the Rams came back from 3-1 down with under 17 minutes left to beat Davidson. VCU are 4-0 in the conference, and on Friday they host Kluyt’s Saint Joseph’s, also unbeaten in the A-10. Somebody’s record goes.
The rookie award stayed at Saint Joseph’s: freshman Monica Piccioli had five points on the weekend, three assists against Lock Haven and a penalty-stroke goal against Villanova that mattered when the lead shrank late.
Two conferences, six awards, and Friday gives us both head-to-heads: Halkes v Pistilli in Lowell, Kluyt v Afonso’s VCU in Richmond. The honours list wrote the weekend preview by itself.
More honours: the Big East weekly awards, the ACC stretch run, and the US college Wednesday round-up.
