BOONE, N.C. – Appalachian State University field hockey will begin its season with a pair of road exhibitions at Davidson on Friday and Wake Forest on Sunday.
The Mountaineers will square off with the Wildcats in Davidson at 11 a.m. and will face the Demon Deacons at 3 p.m. in Winston-Salem on Sunday.
Appalachian features a team full of young talent, which includes the addition of nine freshmen. The Mountaineers also return 18 players from this past year's team including junior goalkeeper,
Rachel Gaines. The Kettering, Ohio, native made a total of 159 saves with an impressive .726 save percentage in 2017.
Leading goal scorer from 2017,
Taylor Cimbalist, and two other seniors have departed from the App State program. The Mountaineers do, however, return their second and third leading goal getters from a year ago, junior
Ali Williams and sophomore
Meghan Smart. Williams netted eight goals to go along with two assists while Smart scored four goals for Appalachian as a freshman.
App opens the regular season by hosting Towson on Aug. 24 at Brandon & Erica M. Adcock Field at 7 p.m.
Quotable
"I'm really excited to get out onto the field this weekend and see where we stand against two quality opponents," head coach
Meghan Dawson said. "Both teams will show us different things we need to focus on before we start up our games. We've got nine new faces and a younger roster so we're really looking to see members of our team step up and help lead us this fall."
Scouting Davidson
The Wildcats finished their 2017 campaign 2-16. Opponents shut out Davidson six times and outscored the Wildcats 58-15 this past season. Appalachian defeated Davidson twice in 2017 with a 3-1 exhibition win and a 2-0 victory in the regular season.
Scouting Wake Forest
Wake Forest finished this past season with a 12-8 record, which included a 3-3 record against fellow ACC opponents. The Demon Deacons totaled 56 goals while conceding only 41. Averaging 2.8 goals per game, the Demon Deacon offense tallied 12 games with three goals or more. Wake Forest knocked off the Mountaineers twice in 2017 – once in an exhibition and then again in the regular season.
Returners
Abby Merrill
Kelli Marshall
Meghan Smart
Annette Jarosz
Veerle Van Heertum
Meredith Phillips
Chloe Bell
Michelle Taylor
Kaley Selner
Ali Williams
Lydia Bullock
Melissa Nobile
Ashton Coley
Rachel Gaines
Keighly Adams
Sarah Heiss
Madison Nuckols
Jillian Ulery
Freshmen
Anna Smarrelli
Lindsey Russell
Fredi Stegen
Sydney Lee
Georgia Kelso
Brenna Schoenbachler
Roxy Day
Ines Yofre
Mikayla Barrow
