For Immediate Release
October 2, 2000


Yodice and Smith Are Week's Best in ODAC
Field Hockey and Cross Country Stars Receive Honors

SALEM, VA--Roanoke College student-athletes Nicole Yodice (Branchville, NJ/High Point Regional) and Casey Smith (Mechanicsville, VA/Atlee) were both named Old Dominion Athletic Conference Athletes of the Week on Monday. Yodice, who earns the honors for the first time since joining the Maroons last season, receives the award for her efforts on the field hockey field. Smith garners the award for the second time this season after setting a record at RC’s cross country invitational.

A defender on RC’s 7-3 field hockey team, Yodice scored two goals for the Maroons last week, helping the team to a 2-1 record. In a 2-1 loss to Division II Longwood College, which is ranked fifth in the nation, Yodice scored a first half goal to give the Maroons a 1-0 lead at the break. She then went on to score an ‘insurance’ goal in a 2-0 victory over conference rival Randolph-Macon College. For the season, Yodice has three goals and six points.

Smith won her fourth consecutive Maroon Invitational on Saturday morning and in doing so set a new course record. Smith completed the race in 17:51, just 30 seconds off her time from the 1999 Division III national championship race and exactly one minute better than the old Elizabeth Campus course record. She beat her closest competitor by 1:45.

Yodice and Smith make the fifth and sixth ODAC Athlete of the Week selections that Roanoke College has received this fall. Blake MacKeen (men’s soccer) and Ali Boyd (field hockey) got the honors after the first week of the season, while Smith and Shelley Olds (women’s soccer) received the honors two weeks ago. 

The Roanoke field hockey team heads to Hollins University on Tuesday, while the cross country team will run at the Radford University Invitational this coming Saturday.