Courtesy of Vermont Sports Information
BURLINGTON, Vt. - Senior Danielle Collins (Walpole, Mass.) scored twice to help lead the University of Vermont field hockey team to a 3-0 victory in America East action against Fairfield on Thursday afternoon at Moulton Winder Field. Collins' second goal of the day broke the UVM school record for career points as she now sits in first with 96. Vermont improves to 3-0 overall and 1-0 in league play, after scoring all three of its goals in the opening half of action.
"We saw a quality field hockey game today in early conference play," said Vermont head coach Nicki Houghton. "A focus of ours is to finish our plays and we were happy to do that three times in the first half. We are still growing and saw some good moments out there and we need to keep building off of that."
Junior Maegan Luce (Hartford, Vt.) opened the scoring 21:40 into the contest with her second of the year, as both have been game-winners. The play started when classmate Kim Striegler (Whitney Point, N.Y.) took a shot in the circle that was deflected right to Luce who tipped it in the back corner.
Just 1:06 later Collins would strike for her first of the day. Junior Lauren Burke (Mahopac, N.Y.) recorded her first career assist as she sent a crossing pass in front of the goal that Collins pushed in to make it 2-0.
Collins would break the record and score the final goal of the contest with 2:55 remaining in the first half, picking up her fourth of the year in the process. Collins gathered a long hit into the circle, went around Fairfield goalkeeper Elizabeth Thomas and scored top shelf off of a bank-handed flip for the record breaker. She passed Jeanne Gaudreau who held the mark of 94 points for the last 25 years. Collins now holds the career (96 points) and single season (45 points in 2006) scoring records at Vermont.
Sophomore goalkeeper Kristen Heavens (Harwinton, Conn.) was solid once again, picking up her third straight shutout by stopping all three shots she faced. Heavens has not allowed a goal in her last 261 minutes in the cage, dating back to last season.
The Catamounts improve to 3-0 for the fourth time in school history and first since 1992. This is the first year that Vermont has started a season with three straight shutouts, as it has only recorded three consecutive on two other occasions (1994 and 1995).
Thomas made 10 saves in goal for Fairfield (0-3, 0-1 America East), as the Stags were out shot 23-5 in their America East debut.
Vermont returns to action on Saturday when it hosts Brown starting at 2:00pm at Moulton Winder Field.