Win­ning sea­sons and NCAA tour­na­ment play dom­i­nate the Fall Season

Nicole Hill

FIELD HOCKEY
One of Wesley’s most dec­o­rated ath­letic pro­grams, the field hockey team, set a school record with a 7–0 start that included a win over peren­nial confer­ence power Mary Wash­ing­ton. Also included in the streak were three of the Wolver­ines’ four shutout vic­to­ries of the sea­son. The fast start also pro­pelled the team to its 12th straight sea­son of at least 11 wins.

Junior Brooke Tad­lock (Mid­dle­town, Del./Middletown) led the team and ranked among the Cap­i­tal Ath­letic Con­fer­ence (CAC) lead­ers with 11 goals and 25 points. Over the course of the year, the nurs­ing major moved into fourth place all-time at Wes­ley in both scor­ing cat­e­gories. Sopho­more Sheree Pleasan­ton (Smyrna, Del./Smyrna) also entered the career top 20 in goals, end­ing the sea­son with six to bring her career total to 15 and reach­ing 18th in the record book.

Sarah John­son (Hon­ey­brook, Pa./Twin Val­ley) turned in a strong sea­son in goal, rank­ing among the con­ference lead­ers by stop­ping nearly 80 per­cent of the oppo­nents’ shots on goal. Dur­ing sep­a­rate weeks this sea­son, she and senior Erin Bai­ley (Rehoboth Beach, Del./Cape Hen­lopen) were named to the National Honor Roll by womensfieldhockey.com

In the CAC play­offs, the Wolver­ines had a dra­matic 3–2 over­time win over St. Mary’s (Md.) in the first round, Wesley’s fifth over­time con­test of the year. Dur­ing the game, fresh­man Abi­gail Hill (Dover, Del./Lake For­est) tied the game with just 1:34 left with her sec­ond goal of the after­noon. Then in over­time, it was Pleasan­ton with the game-winner to lead Wes­ley to a semi­fi­nal matchup with a Sal­is­bury squad ranked No. 2 in Divi­sion III. To find out details of the sea­son end­ing, visit the ath­let­ics web­site at www.gowesleyathletics.com

MEN’S SOCCER

On the men’s soc­cer pitch, the Wolver­ines turned in another win­ning sea­son — their sev­enth in the last eight years. Wesley’s sea­son open­ing win at McDaniel was the 200th career vic­tory for head coach Steve Clark. All of his vic­to­ries have come coach­ing the blue and white.

Injuries seemed to plague the squad to some extent all sea­son, but the team still came through to reg­is­ter 10 wins due to the con­tri­bu­tions of sev­eral new­com­ers. While the defense was led by senior Ryan Fisher (East­amp­ton, N.J./Rancocas Val­ley) and juniors Nick Talarico (Lit­tle Egg Har­bor, N.J./ Pinelands) and Dan Canova (Ocean City, N.J./Ocean City), the offense was paced by sev­eral new­com­ers. Kyle Long (Delaware, Ohio/Buckeye) scored seven goals, the most for a Wolver­ine since 2006. The next three lead­ing scor­ers, Frank Buffa (Pheonixville, Pa./Owen J. Roberts), Luis Rivera (Rockville, Md./Rockville) and Josh Chel­lah (Colum­bia, Md./Long Reach), were freshmen.

Frank Buffa

WOMEN’S SOCCER

The women’s soc­cer team fea­tured a ros­ter with 16 fresh­men and a sched­ule with seven games against region­ally ranked oppo­nents, yet still man­aged to sal­vage a seven win sea­son and the team’s first berth in the CAC play­offs since 2007. The team played well late in the year and nearly knocked off three region­ally ranked foes, falling in each match by just a sin­gle goal.

Saman­tha Han­ni­bal (Bal­ti­more, Md./Loch Raven) led four fresh­men who topped the team in scor­ing with seven goals, three assists and 17 points. Sammi Nevin (East Greenville, Pa./Upper Perkiomen), Kaitlin Barry (Chester, N.J./Immaculata) and Lind­sey Camp­bell (Bear, Del./Padua Acad­emy), also fresh­men, each scored at least five goals.
Wes­ley also broke in a fresh­man goal­keeper, Syd­ney Kahan (Cranston, R.I./Cranston), who stopped 79 per­cent of the shots taken at her. She also post­ed six shutouts on the year while mak­ing 124 saves and play­ing every minute in net for the Wolverines.

VOLLEYBALL

The Wes­ley vol­ley­ball team stepped up its sched­ul­ing in the program’s fourth year. While the team took a step back in the win col­umn from 2008, the expe­ri­ence should help a youth­ful team in the future.

Seniors Lilia Brekke (Prescott, Ariz./Caesar Rod­ney (Del.)) and Net­tie Choice (Lewes, Del./Cape Hen­lopen) paced the team in hit­ting and block­ing once again as they fin­ished their careers as the school’s first four-year play­ers in vol­ley­ball. Sopho­mores Sophie Reed (Dover, Del./Dover) and Kris­ten Roberts (Love­land, Colo./Middletown (Del.)) and fresh­man Carle Ax (Lewis­ton, Idaho/Lewiston) also turned in strong per­for­mances hit­ting, set­ting and serv­ing to pro­vide hope for 2010.

WOMEN’S CROSS COUNTRY

Kris­tine Bailey

The women’s cross coun­try team fea­tured one student-athlete pulling double-duty on the field hockey team in Tristin Bur­ris (Cam­den, Del./ Poly­tech). Twice this sea­son, she played field hockey on Fri­day and Sun­day with a cross coun­try meet on Sat­ur­day. She earned a CAC Run­ner of the Week honor on Octo­ber 6 after fin­ishing fourth over­all at the Wilm­ing­ton Invi­ta­tional, the day after scor­ing her first career field hockey goal and the day before help­ing the field hockey team to another victory.

One of Wesley’s 10 fastest women at both 5,000 and 6,000 meters, Bur­ris was joined by another strong newcom­er in the record books. Junior Kris­tine Bai­ley (Van­cou­ver, Wash./Evergreen) formed a strong one-two punch with Bur­ris for Wes­ley, pac­ing the Wolver­ines at three dif­fer­ent meets in her first sea­son with the team.

MEN’S CROSS COUNTRY

On the men’s side, senior John Clarke (Mid­dle­town, Del./Middletown) paced the squad at three meets, while fresh­man Terry Harens-Walgreen (Shady­side, Md./Southern) led the way at two more races.

To see how the Wolver­ines fared at the CAC Cham­pi­onships, click here.