2012-13 Season-in-Review: Field Hockey

HUNTINGDON, Pa. – In her 15^th season at the helm of the Juniata College women's field hockey team, head coach Caroline Gillich reached the 300 game milestone and led the Eagles to a .500 season at 9-9 overall and 3-3 in the Landmark Conference.   This is the fourth straight year Juniata has finished over .500 and eighth time in the past 10 years.  The Eagles placed four on all-conference teams, earned five weekly honors and saw a senior walk away a Big Five winner.

Junior Emma Dahmus (Hummelstown, Pa./Lower Dauphin) was the lone Eagle on first-team.  The midfielder recorded her first collegiate hat trick in Juniata's 5-4 double overtime win against Drew University on October 20.  The performance earned her offensive player of the week honors.  She was also named to the Landmark Conference All-Academic Team.

Second-Team All-Landmark Conference selections Jill McNeish (Greesnburg, Pa./Hempfield Area) and

Caroline Phillips (Wilmington, Del./Concord) closed out their careers outstandingly.  Named the team's most valuable player, McNeish started all 18 games of the season and earned the coveted Carolyn L. Stambaugh Award at Juniata's Athletics Award Night.

Phillips appeared in all 18 games, starting all but one in 2012.  She led the team with 11 goals and took a team-high 58 shots.  Responsible for two game winning goals during the season, Phillips earned both Landmark Offensive Player of the Week (Oct. 29) and Synapse Sports Honor Roll honors.  She, McNeish and fellow senior Janelle Howard (Mechanicsburg, Pa./Cumberland Valley) graduated having won three league titles. 

Howard was the Eagles primary goalie, appearing in all 18 games and spending over 1,100 minutes in the cage.  She recorded a team-best 81 saves to finish fifth in the league and had a .743 save percentage on the year.  Howard earned defensive player of the week on October 1.  Freshman Kortney Showers (Aspers, Pa./Biglerville) won offensive player of the week at the same time to help the Eagles sweep the weekly Landmark honors for the first time since November 2010.

Joining McNeish and Phillips on the second team was freshman Sara Bilheimer (Bethlehem, Pa./Freedom) after she had a breakout performance.  Billheimer played in 17 games and earned 14 starts in her collegiate debut.  She finished third on the team with six goals and 17 points.

Juniata started the 2012 season winning three of its first four games. After running into a skid in the middle of the season, the Eagles regrouped and finished strong.  Their win over Drew (Oct. 20) gave them confidence to win the last three games of the season.  The biggest over Landmark rival the University of Scranton (Oct. 28).   The Royals were in a tie for first place in the league and the Eagles needed  a win to keep playoff hopes alive.  Juniata jumped out to a 4-1 lead with less than 18 minutes to play.  But Scranton rallied to score three goals in the final 6:30 to tie the game at 4-4.  With less than a minute remaining in overtime, Phillips hit a shot from just inside the top of the circle past Scranton's keeper, giving the Eagles the upset.  Juniata's win played spoiler and ensured that Scranton would not host the conference tournament.  But another upset in the league pushed Juniata out of the top four.

Individuals to make their way into Eagle hockey history were Phillips and Dahmus.  Both are among all-time season and career record holders in points.  Phillips also made the season and career records list in goals.  Dahmus led the team in assists in 2012 with six to work her way onto the career assists list.

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