Box Score LANCASTER, PA - Seniors Eileen Keever (Sr., Prospect Park, PA/Interboro) and Brittany Croll (Sr., Lewes, DE/Indian River) combined for three goals and Jessica Senior (Jr., Wilmington, DE/Archmere Academy) registered an assist as the Franklin & Marshall College field hockey downed Swarthmore College 4-1 at Baker Field to clinch the #5 seed in the Centennial Conference field hockey playoffs.
F&M (12-5, 6-4 Centennial Conference) will now meet #4 Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore in a first round game on Wednesday, November 2 at a time to be determined. In the two team's previous meeting, Hopkins defeated F&M 7-0 on October 8 in Baltimore.
Against Swarthmore (8-9, 4-6 CC), F&M took the lead 14 minutes into the game as Croll tallied an unassisted goal at 14:14 for a 1-0 lead. Mollie Ruben (Fr., Hingham, MA/Hingham) added to the margin as she finished a centering pass from Senior at 20:43 before Keever blasted a feed from Lindsay Solar (So., King of Prussia, PA/Upper Merion) into the back of the cage at 21:36 for a 3-0 lead at halftime.
In the second half, Keever scored an unassisted goal at 63:01 to put F&M up 4-0 before Swarthmore's Heidi Fieselman tallied an unassisted goal at 66:15 to breakup the shutout.
Croll's goal continued a stretch of four games in which she has scored seven goals and dished out four assists to raise her season scoring total to 16 goals and eight assists for 40 points. Further, she now has 52-22-124 in her career at F&M, two shy of surpassing Laura Kramedas '80 (53) for the all-time lead and one short of passing Sue Bowen '80 for sole possession of second place.
In goal, Michelle Altman (Sr., Trumbull, CT/Trumbull) earned the win making three saves in the first half, while Lindsay Klimik (Sr., Brick, NJ/Brick) added two saves with a goal allowed in the second half. For Swarthmore, Karen Lorang made three saves with three goals allowed in the first half to take the loss and Melissa LaVan added two saves with a goal allowed in the second half.
The win improves F&M to 6-9-1 all-time against the Garnet as the Diplomats have won the past two meetings.
Swarthmore (8-9, 4-6 CC) 0-1 -- 1
Franklin & Marshall (12-5, 6-4 CC) 3-1 -- 4
Goals: F&M - Brittany Croll (unassisted), 14:14
F&M - Mollie Ruben (Jessica Senior), 20:43
F&M - Eileen Keever (Lindsay Solar), 21:36
F&M - Eileen Keever (unassisted), 63:01
SC - Heidi Fieselmann (unassisted), 66:15
Goalie Saves: F&M - Michelle Altman, 3 (35:00) / Lindsay Klimik, 2 (35:00)
SC - Karen Lorang, 3 (35:00) / Melissa LaVan, 2 (35:00)
Shots: F&M 11, Swarthmore 8
Penalty Corners: F&M 7, Swarthmore 14
Defensive Saves: F&M - Mollie Ruben, 1