The road to Bowdoin’s fifth national field hockey title will run through Brunswick this weekend when the Polar Bears host the NESCAC champoinships tomorrow and Sunday.
Currently ranked second nationally and first in the conference, the Polar Bears will play Tufts, the fifth seed, at 11 a.m. tomorrow in a semifinal game. Middlebury and Trinity will also be playing tomorrow with the winners facing off against each other for an automatic bid to the NCAA Division III tournament.
While Bowdoin is the number one seed, it will not have any easy games this weekend, according to Head Coach Nicky Pearson.
“To win the tournament we are going to have to put together two of the best games we have played all year,“ said Pearson.
She said that Tufts will be very confident coming into the semifinal after its upset over Amherst last week.
This is Pearson’s 19th year coaching Bowdoin’s field hockey program. During that time she has received the NCAA Division III Coach of the Year award four times.
While an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament is nearly guarenteed, both Pearson and her players are focusing on Saturday and taking it one game at a time.
Bowdoin has consistently performed well over the years. Pearson attributed the team’s success to the quality of the players and the senior leadership.
Even after losing four seniors from last year’s national championship-winning squad, this team was quick to find its identity and return to top form.
“Each year it feels very different. We only have the same team for one year,” said Kim Kahnweiler ’16. “We may have played at a certain level one game, but the next game we are playing that much better. We are constantly on an upward trajectory.”
Pearson stressed the importance of her players staying in sync with each other and executing the technical skills they have developed. In her mind, no one player is more important than another.
“It is going to be really important that our goalkeeper and our defensive unit are both in sync, and that they are going to limit opportunities for our opponents,” said Pearson.
“Our midfield is going to be really important. They are the key to our transition. We have to make sure they execute any of the chances they have.”
The Polar Bears are looking forward to playing at home where they have only lost one game in the last five years.
“It’s always nice to play on your own turf and have home-field advantage,” said Kahnweiler.
Associate Director of Athletics Alice Wiercinski has been working over the past week to organize the tournament. The host team only gets about a week to plan the event as the location of the tournament is not determined until the quarterfinal matches are completed the week before.
Organizing the tournament “involves all sorts of different groups and people working and partnering together on campus to make this event happen,” said Wiercinski.
She acknowledged the difficulty in making sure visiting teams had locker rooms available. Since both fall and winter teams are now in season there are not many available spaces. Some teams will be moving out of their locker rooms early to provide space for visiting field hockey teams.
The Office of Security and Safety will supervise the games to make sure everyone is enjoying the tournament responsibly.