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Field Hockey Selected Third in PL Preseason Poll
Eagles On Course to Compete for League Title

August 21, 2002

Head Coach Steve Jennings has his squad ready for the 2002 season.

“We are full of excitement for the season to begin,” said Head Coach Steve Jennings. “ I think the Patriot League title will be highly contested between a number of very good teams and we hope to be the one standing on top at the end.”

Holy Cross led all league members with 65 points and six first-place votes while Lafayette had 63 points and seven first-place votes. AU was the only other program to earn first-place votes with one.

In their first season as a member of the Patriot League last year the Eagles finished 7-10 overall and 4-3 in league play. AU secured the third seed in the Patriot League Tournament and lost to Lafayette in a semifinal matchup, 1-0.

AU returns its top scorer from last season in senior All-America candidate Magdalena Aguilar (Buenos Aires, Argentina/St. Catherine’s Moorlands), who finished with 28 points. The forward was named to the NFHCA First-Team Regional All-America Team for the third straight year and was an All-Patriot League First-Team selection.

Senior Kate Finn (Hartwood, Va./Magruda) has started the last two seasons for the Eagles in the midfield and will lend experience to a young defense. Also expected to be an impact player is junior forward Melissa Snyder (Gaithersburg, Md./Quince Orchard), who tallied six goals on 27 shots in a break-out sophomore campaign. In goal will be junior Laura Miller (Pennsburg, Pa./Quakertown), who logged the bulk of minutes in net for American in 2001.

The Eagles are fueled by nine incoming freshmen and sophomore transfer Sacha-Rae Teixeira (Mississauga, Ont./Univ. of New Brunswick), who competed for the bronze-winning Ontario Under-18 Pronvincial Team in 2002.

AU opens at Virginia Commonwealth University on Aug. 31 at 1 p.m.

American University, which fields a 19-sport NCAA Division I athletics program featuring 10 women’s sports and nine for men, recently completed its inaugural year of membership in the Patriot League. The University had an extremely successful year to date on respective fields of play, capturing league championships in men’s soccer, women’s volleyball, men’s tennis and women’s tennis, and regular-season titles in men’s basketball and women’s lacrosse.

Chartered by an Act of Congress in 1893, American University features students from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and more than 160 nations worldwide.