NEWPORT NEWS, Va.— Georgie McTear of Massachusetts was named the Atlantic 10 Field Hockey Offensive Player of the Year, and VCU's Janne Wetzel was voted the A-10 Defensive Player of the Year in the league's annual field hockey awards, which were released Thursday. Freshman Bridget McCormick of VCU was named the A-10 Rookie of the Year and Stacey Bean from VCU was selected as Coach of the Year.
The Atlantic 10 announced the four major awards along with the All-Conference, All-Rookie and All-Academic teams ahead of the start of the 2020-21 A-10 Field Hockey Championship, which begins Friday at Cary Street Field in Richmond, Va. The major awards, All-Conference Teams and All-Rookie Team were voted on by the A-10’s head field hockey coaches. The All-Academic team was selected by the field hockey media relations directors.
McTear scored seven goals and recorded three assists for 17 points, leading the league in both goals and points and tying for sixth in assists. She tied for the league lead in game-winning goals with three, and led the A-10 in shots on goal with 20. A senior midfielder from Portsmouth, England, she also was named to the All-Conference First Team and the All-Academic team.
Wetzel anchored a defense that allowed a stingy five total goals in seven games, and posted three shutouts, all of them in conference. The junior back from Munich, Germany, also had four goals and three assists for a team-high 11 points, and equaled McTear for the most game-winning goals (3) in the Atlantic 10. She also tied for second for shots on goal with 15, and was named to the All-Conference First Team and the All-Academic team.
A freshman midfielder from Haddonfiled, N.J., McCormick led VCU and tied for fifth in the league in goals scored with five. She was second at VCU, behind Wetzel, in points, tallying 10, which ranked eighth in the league. She tied for four in shots on goal in the A-10 this season. She was also named to the All-Conference Second Team and the All-Rookie Team.
Bean earned her third Atlantic 10 Coach of the Year award, and her first as VCU's head coach after leading the Rams to a perfect 7-0 season. VCU went 6-0 in conference play to earn its first-ever Atlantic 10 Field Hockey regular season title. The Rams are currently ranked 18th nationally in the NFHCA Coaches Poll. Bean, who previously served at the head coach at former A-10 field hockey programs Saint Francis and Rhode Island, is in her fourth year at VCU and is the only person in league history in any sport to earn A-10 Coach of the Year at three different institutions.
Joining McTear and Wetzel on the All-Conference First Team were Jazmin Palma of Lock Haven, Jess Beach from Massachusetts, Richmond's Steffie Bongers and Olivia Frazier, Katy Benton and Anna Miller of Saint Joseph's, and Maite Sturm and Litiana Field of VCU.
The All-Conference Second Team includes McCormick and her VCU teammate Svea Sturm, Cassidy Atchison, Sara Hayes and Jordan Olenginski from Saint Joseph's, Josie Rossbach of UMass, Lock Haven's Tia Judy, Niamh Sexton and Martina Spangenberg and Davidson's Corynne Hammit.
Sexton, Beech, McTear, Bongers, Miller, Olenginski, Svea Sturm and Wetzel are all part of the All-Academic Team, as are Davidson's Nellie Turnage, Nicholl Fenton from Saint Joseph's and Mackenzie Williams from VCU.
The All-Rookie team consisted of Charlie Kabelac and Lena Stiebing of Davidson, Anna May Barbusca and Martina Spangenberg of Lock Haven, Josephine Ang and Claire Danahy from UMass, Richmond's Madi Hyatt, Katelyn Cocco and Celesta Smiths of Saint Joseph's, and VCU's McCormick and Ashlyn Hughes.
The 2020-21 Atlantic 10 Field Championship begins with two Friday semifinal matches between No. 1 VCU and No. 4 Richmond in the first semifinal at noon ET and No. 2 Lock Haven and No. 3 Saint Joseph's in the second semifinal at 3:00 pm ET. The championship final will be played Saturday at noon ET. All three matches of the A-10 championship will be streamed live on ESPN+.