The William and Mary field hockey team had three players selected to the Colonial Athletic Association All-Conference teams Thursday night, including one first-team honoree and two members of the all-rookie squad. The awards were announced on the eve of the CAA Championships in Norfolk. Athletes were nominated and voted on by their coaches, and no coach was allowed to vote for his or her own players.
Leading the way for the Tribe was midfielder Leah Zamesnik (Norfolk, Va.), who earned first-team All-CAA honors for the first time in her career. A redshirt-junior, Zamesnik was W&M's leading scorer in 2011 with 15 points, scoring a career-best seven goals and an assist. She converted a penalty-stroke to ensure the win against Longwood, and scored the winning tally against UC Davis a week later. Zamesnik also led the team with a career-high 64 shots, and her 3.76 shots per match is the 14th-best rate in a single season in school history. She is the 26th W&M athlete to be named first-team All-CAA, and this marks the third all-conference recognition of her career. In 2008, Zamesnik was a member of the all-rookie team, and earned second-team accolades in 2009.
The Tribe also had a pair of midfielders make the all-rookie team, in true freshman Emma Clifton (Loomberah, NSW) and redshirt-freshman Jesse Ebner (Sinking Spring, Pa.). Clifton ranked second on the team with 14 points, on four goals and six assists, and was credited with the game-winning goal against Monmouth when she blasted a shot into the net just 46 seconds into the match. The freshman from Australia recorded both a goal and an assist in three matches, including the upset win over No. 20 Northeastern, and her season-average of 0.38 assists per match ranks 13th in school history.
Ebner played in the defensive midfield, but was also a key component of the Tribe's penalty corner team and accrued 12 points on four goals and four assists. She scored a pair of goals against Rutgers, incuding the game-winner, and was also credited with the winning tally against Miami. On the other end of the field, Ebner was instrumental in helping the Tribe allow 70 fewer shots than it did last year, and recorded a defensive save in the match against Virginia. The duo of Clifton and Ebner became the first pair of freshman for W&M to score at least 10 points each in the same season since 1980, and Clifton's six assists were the second-most ever scored by a Tribe rookie.
