CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- The bracket for the 2012 America East Field Hockey Championship is set following the final three conference games of the season on Saturday. University of New Hampshire's Memorial Field will be the site of the tournament for the third straight year as the Wildcats will welcome University at Albany, University of Maine and Fairfield University to Durham for the tournament next week.
The Wildcats, the top seed for the third straight year, will host the fourth-seeded Stags in the first semifinal on Friday, Nov. 2 at 2 p.m. while the second-seeded Great Danes will face the third-seeded Black Bears Friday at 5 p.m. The two winners will meet for the America East title on Sunday, Nov. 4, a game that will be streamed live at AmericaEast.com for free. The league champion will receive an automatic berth to the NCAA Tournament's field of 16 teams.
New Hampshire (10-7, 5-0 AE), the 19th-ranked team in the country, secured its second outright America East regular-season title and perfect 5-0 league mark in three years with a 2-1 win at #25 Maine Saturday. Hannah Richard's goal in the 55th minute proved to be the difference for the Wildcats, who became the third team to win three straight regular-season crowns (Boston U. 1990-93, 2004-07). Maine (10-9, 2-3 AE), which will be the tournament's No. 3 seed, got a score from Cassidy Svetek and eight saves from Alicia Frisch.
Albany (11-7, 3-2 AE) beat Vermont (1-16, 0-5 AE), 1-0, as the Great Danes locked up the No. 2 seed for the tournament. Daphne Voormolen scored the lone goal of the game, her ninth of the year, in the 49th minute. It's the sixth time in the last seven years the Great Danes, who are ranked 20th nationally, have been seeded second or better. The Catamounts' Stephanie Zygmunt kept her team in the game with a whopping 18 saves. UVM wraps up its season with Harvard Sunday.
15th-ranked Boston U
niversity (11-6, 4-1 AE) picked up a 6-2 win over Fairfield behind two goals each from Ella Gunson and Tabi Hatch. The victory was the 400th win of head coach Sally Starr's career as she became just the sixth Division I coach to achieve the milestone. Fairfield (10-9, 1-4 AE), which joined America East as an associate member in 2007, will be making its first-ever championship appearance.
Both America East Championship semifinal matches resulted in competitive regular-season contests that were decided by just one goal. UNH needed double-overtime before beating Fairfield, 3-2, on Hannah Richard's goal on Sept. 28, while Albany got an early score from Corinne McConvile and held on for a 1-0 shutout win over Maine on Oct.
20.
For complete tournament information, including the bracket, live coverage links, tournament history and more, visit
Championship Central.
2012 America East Field Hockey Championship
All games at University of New Hampshire's Memorial Field, Durham, N.H.
Semifinals - Friday, November 2
#1 New Hampshire vs. #4 Fairfield, 2 p.m.
#2 Albany vs. #3 Maine, 5 p.m.
Title Game - Sunday, November 4
Semifinal winners, TBD