Four Bison Named to Women's Soccer All-Patriot League First Team
Nov. 4, 2008
LEWISBURG, Pa. - The Bucknell women's soccer team placed a league-high four players on the All-Patriot League First Team, the league office announced on Tuesday. Bison standouts Jennifer Dervarics (Emmaus, Pa./Emmaus), Caitlin Holtz (Freehold, N.J./The Peddie School), Nicole Marotta (Bridgewater, N.J./Mount St. Mary Academy) and Christa Matlack (South Williamsport, Pa./South Williamsport) were all honored. It was the third all-conference citation for both Dervarics and Marotta and the first for Holtz and Matlack. Bucknell's four first-team honorees ties the program record set last season. Navy and Holy Cross both placed two student-athletes on the 11-person first team, while Army, Colgate and American had one each. Dervarics and Marotta, both seniors, became the sixth and seventh players in program history to earn at least three all-league plaques. Marotta is just the second to earn first-team honors three times, joining Bucknell Hall of Famer Lisa Gibbons, who made the first team in 1992-94. Dervarics, the 2008 Patriot League Preseason Player of the Year, has lived up to that billing so far. She leads the conference in scoring with 30 points on 12 goals and six assists, equaling her career-high output from last season, when she also earned Offensive Player of the Year honors. Dervarics, who has a point in 11 of 19 games this season, ranks fifth on Bucknell's all-time single-season lists for both goals and points. Dervarics has also moved into third place on Bucknell's career charts for goals (36), assists (19) and points (91). In Patriot League play this season, she had two-goal, five-point games against Holy Cross and Lafayette, and she also had a goal and an assist in a big win over Colgate. Early in the year she scored the tying and go-ahead goals in Bucknell's 3-2 upset of Maryland, and she also registered a goal against Penn State.
Marotta has been the backbone of the Bison defense for the last four years, patrolling the center of the field with authority. This season she has been asked to play more at center midfield, and she has responded with a career-high five goals, including two in a home win over Mount St. Mary's. Marotta was the Patriot League Co-Defensive Player of the Year and an NSCAA All-Region pick in 2006. This is her second year as a team captain. One of the reasons why coach Ben Landis was able to move Marotta up had to do with the emergence of Holtz and two of her sophomore classmates as solid stoppers on the back line. Holtz has had a terrific year both turning away the opposition and setting up the offense in transition. She leads the Patriot League in assists with eight this season, a total that is tied for second-most in school history. Matlack has teamed with Dervarics to form the Patriot League's most dangerous forward combo. Matlack added another eight goals to Dervarics' 12, and the duo has combined to equal or better the team scoring totals of four of the eight conference schools. Dervarics and Matlack rank 1-2 in the Patriot League scoring race with 30 and 20 points, respectively. Matlack missed much of the preseason as well as the first three games of the season with a leg injury, but she hardly skipped a beat after returning to the lineup. She scored a game-tying goal in the second half against Penn State in her first start of the year, and the most dramatic of her four game-winning goals came with 29 seconds left in a 1-0 win over Temple. In Patriot League play, Matlack was credited with game-winning goals against Lehigh and American, and she also scored a big go-ahead goal in the win over Colgate. Matlack has not yet completed her sophomore season, and she already ranks No. 10 on Bucknell's career goals list with 16. The Patriot League will announce the 2008 major award winners - offensive player, defensive player, goalkeeper, rookie and coach of the year - on Thursday night at its tournament banquet in Annapolis, Md. Bucknell (11-6-2 overall, 5-2-0 Patriot League) goes into the Patriot League Tournament as the No. 2 seed and will face No. 3 Army on Friday night at 7 p.m. Host and top-seeded Navy plays No. 4 Colgate in the first semifinal game at 4 p.m. on Friday, with the winners meeting in the championship game on Sunday at 1 p.m. |
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