By Justin Zackal
Senior Maggie Nelson is rewriting the Saint Vincent and NCAA record book.
Saint Vincent is not the patron saint of lacrosse playing, but the PAC school that competes in the Ohio River Lacrosse Conference recently has been the cradle of superlative lacrosse statistics. The Bearcat men’s team is in first place in the ORLC with a 9-0 record and a 13-3 overall mark, while the women’s team is in third place at 8-2 and 11-3 overall. However, they are making headlines for these goggle-popping numbers:
-Senior Maggie Nelson has scored 124 goals this year to lead NCAA Division III with 8.86 goals per game; the next highest in the rankings are 91 goals and a 7.08 average.
-Junior Jeremy Kennedy ranks seventh in NCAA Division III with 3.73 goals per game
-Nelson scored a team-record 12 goals in a 21-18 win at Westminster Tuesday to break the Division III single-season record; the previous record was 115.
-Kennedy scored six goals to help the Bearcats set a team record for goals in a game during a 32-0 win over Earlham, April 14.
-Nelson’s 160 points this year set the NCAA Division III single-season record that stood for 22 years.
-Her 19 points against Chatham, April 11, was also a single-game points record.
The SVC men lead the ORLC standings with a 9-0 record.
-The Bearcat men have won 10 straight games, including the last four by a combined score of 80-15.
-For her career, Nelson has 347 goals and 471 points, which both rank second all-time behind Curry’s Ashley Hansbury, who logged 362 and 500, respectively, from 2008-11.
-The Bearcat women have won seven of their last eight games, scoring twice as many goals in those wins, but their one loss as a 22-1 setback against Transylvania.
-In the three years of the ORLC’s existence, Saint Vincent’s men’s and women’s team have combined to play in five of the six championship games, with the women winning the only title in 2015. (W&J women won the last two and the Transylvania men have won all three.)
The ORLC championship tournament will be played May 4 and 5 for the women and May 2 and 5 for the men. This year is the final season of PAC teams competing in the ORLC, as next year they will all compete under the PAC banner.
