For Immediate Release April 19, 1999
Roanoke To Host ODAC Tournament
Maroons Earn Right After Claiming Regular Season Title
1999 ODAC Women's Lacrosse Championship Home Page
SALEM, Va.--The Roanoke College women’s lacrosse team will be the number-one seed heading into this week’s Old Dominion Athletic Conference tournament, and as a result will receive a bye in the first round and will host the championship round on Saturday and Sunday (April 24-25). The Maroons completed the regular season with a 12-3 mark and a perfect 8-0 against conference foes. This was the sixth time in program history that Roanoke has not lost to a league opponent during the regular season. The 12 wins were the team’s most in the regular season since the 1992 campaign when it racked up 13. Roanoke will play the winner of the Guilford/Lynchburg game which is scheduled for Wednesday afternoon at Lynchburg College. The other semifinal will pit Randolph-Macon against the winner of the Washington & Lee/Bridgewater contest. The two winners of the semifinal games will meet at 2:00 pm on Sunday, at Roanoke’s Alumni Field, for the conference crown.
The Maroons are currently ranked 13th in the Intercollegiate Women’s Lacrosse Coaches Association (IWLCA) Division III national poll. The team has been ranked in the top 20 all season long, breaking in as the 16th rated team in the preseason, and peaking at the number seven spot two weeks ago.
This will be Roanoke’s 17th consecutive appearance in the ODAC tournament. The Maroons have never missed the conference’s postseason and have played in every conference title game since the 1986 season. The Maroons will be in search of their ninth conference title and first since the 1997 season.
Lindsay Wernert (Greenwich, CT/Greenwich) will lead the Maroon offense into the weekend’s action. Through the first 15 games of the season, Wernert has scored 44 goals and handed out 20 assists for 64 points, all team-highs. She moved into the fifth spot on Roanoke’s all-time scoring list this year. In her four-year career in Salem, Wernert has 117 goals, 61 assists, and 178 points.
Wernert is complemented on the attack by her sister, Kylie, and fellow senior Ellie Page (Savannah, GA/Berkshire). Kylie Wernert trails her sister in the goal category by just four scores, while Page has beaten the opposing goaltender a career-high 30 times this season. The trio has combined to score over 67 percent of the team’s goals this season, and record 64.6 percent of its points. In eight conference games this year, the Maroons outscored their opponents 100-35.
The high-powered offense is backed up by an outstanding, and young, defensive core. Freshmen Sarah Tengwall (Arnold, MD/St. Mary’s) and Erin Brooks (Towson, MD/Maryvale) have started all 15 games for Roanoke on the back row, as has senior co-captain Maura Hilgartner (Baltimore, MD/Mercy). Brooks and Hilgartner are both tied for the team lead in caused turnover to turnover ratio (3.3:1) this season, while Tengwall has turned the ball over just eight times while causing one 19 times. Also adding to the solid defense this year has been sophomore goalie Debbie Apazidis (New Canaan, CT/New Canaan). In playing in all of Roanoke’s 900 minutes this year, Apazidis has made 125 saves and allowed just 7.13 goal a game (in the latest NCAA stats, Apazidis was 12th in the country in goals against average).