HOW THE TEAMS WERE SELECTED For the 18th consecutive year, the Burlington Free Press sports activities team of workers wore out the telephone lines. It filled up e-mailboxes to find the quality of excessive college ladies’ hockey gamers Vermont offers. As usual, trimming the listing down to first and 2nd groups, plus a forged of honorable mentions, is not easy. And are you making this year’s squad even harder to crack? Eight players who made the first or 2d last team in the 12 months were again in line for similar honors.
But on the give-up of the day, it remains a personal manner, one we undertake with terrific satisfaction and care.
• The player:
A three-recreation superstar headed to Providence College to keep her area hockey career, McNamara used her tireless work ethic and skill to tally 24 goals and ten assists, a tidy observe-as much as final year’s 29-goal, 8-assist junior campaign. Earning BFP second-crew honors last iciness, McNamara, with a knack for rebound dreams and movements to the first line after assisting Rice to the 3-seed and a niche in Division I semifinals.
• Coach Aaron Miller on McNamara: “When your satisfactory player is your hardest employee, it makes it pretty smooth. Without her, we are probably a D-II crew. That’s how plenty she manner to our crew.”
Senior, forward
• The player: Bettering her point totals in each season following her first year, Miller-Johnson lands on the BFP first group for the 3rd time and earns the Free Press’ Miss Hockey identify in leading the Hornets to the D-I championship. Smart and particular-oriented in her practice, Miller-Johnson racked up 21 dreams and 25 assists this winter, finishing with 124 factors for her profession.
• Coach John Maddalena on Miller-Johnson: “She has a cannon for a shot. You can’t deliver her an inch; if it doesn’t move in or pass over the net, there will be a terrific rebound. What separates her from the maximum of the gifted gamers in Division I.”
• The player: Matching smarts with an unrelenting pursuit of the %, Young was one-0.33 of a devastating institution of first-line forwards who sparked Essex to the D-I championship and a software file 106 desires. Young, a 2nd-crew BFP choice closing wintry weather, struck for a profession-excessive 17 dreams to go together with 17 assists while cracking the profession a hundred-point barrier. Young additionally had 0 penalty minutes this season and six, which is usual in a four- to 12-month profession.
• Coach John Maddalena on Young: “She’s just tenacious, a fierce competitor who never gives up on the play. We run a -person forecheck, and they are the primary individual at the p.C., wants to pressure the turnover.”
