The regular season for women’s lacrosse wraps up this weekend with three Big East contests on Saturday and a stray Xavier/San Diego State game on Sunday. With that in mind, and the approach of the conference tournament semifinals on April 30th, we should probably make some postseason award picks, huh? Once we get past Sunday, it’s only a matter of time before the league announces the official award results, and we gotta beat them to the punch!
Let’s get right into it!
Offensive Player of the Year: Olivia Ripple, Denver
At some point, being top 15 in the
country in total goals and #8 in goals per game has to count for something. In this case, it means I’m giving this trophy to Olivia Ripple, who is the best goal scorer in the Big East. She’s the only woman with more than 50 goals overall this year, and she’s the only woman to get to 20 goals in conference action, landing there exactly. The #2 goal scorer in the league by overall or league play numbers is Ripple’s own teammate, Caroline Keil. That’s how far out in front of the rest of the Big East Ripple is: Only the woman scoring in her wake is coming close to catching her.
WITH THAT SAID…..
Freshman of the Year: Dani Serrano, Marquette
…. Dani Serrano is leading the Big East in points per game at 4.64, narrowly edging out Ripple there at 4.53/game. I usually tend towards saying the points leader not the goals leader should be the OPOY, but 1) the coaches usually disagree with me there and 2) if you’re going to vote for a freshman to be the OPOY, they’d better be destroying the competition, and I really can’t say that’s the case for Serrano here. She is first in the league in assists per game at 2.57 and no one else is north of 1.60. Serrano is also #9 in goals per game, and to top it off, she led the Big East with five Freshman of the Week honors when no one else even got it twice. This should be a unanimous choice.
Defensive Player of the Year: Abby Beran, Connecticut
She was named Defensive Player of the Week four times, no one else got it twice, she leads the Big East in ground balls AND caused turnovers per game. I don’t know what else you want here.
Midfielder of the Year: Hanna Bodner, Marquette
I suppose I could try very very hard to try to discern who amongst the stats leaders is a midfielder. Or, I could take the easy way out and point out that Bodner was Midfielder of the Week five times this season AND she was Midfielder of the Year last year, so we already know the coaches love her anyway. Only catch here is that technically Denver’s Olivia Ripple is listed on their roster as a midfielder…. but she also snagged five Attacker of the Week trophies, so we’re just going to ignore DU’s roster.
Goalkeeper of the Year: Lexi Gwaku, Denver
She’s leading the Big East in goals against average at just 7.38 per 60 minutes. She’s leading the Big East in save percentage at .487. Denver as a team leads the Big East in fewest goals allowed this season at just 104 on the year and a nearly non-existent 21 in league games. Pending their finale against Georgetown, Marquette is the only BE squad to tally more than five goals against the Pioneers this season as they scored nine, largely thanks to a 4-1 run after trailing 12-5 early in the third quarter.
Coach of the Year: Whoever wins on Saturday between Denver and Georgetown
Both of those two got through the rest of league play at 5-0, so there will be just one stand alone champion in the Big East this year. As such, whoever wins — Denver’s Liza Kelly or Georgetown’s Caitlyn Phipps — gets to be Coach of the Year. Either Denver runs the table and wins the league as expected or Georgetown runs the table AND knocks off Denver, the projected favorite in the league.
All-Big East Team
Abby Beran, D, UConn
Hanna Bodner, M, Marquette
Rose Christie, M, Villanova
Lexi Gwaku, GK, Denver
Caroline Keil, A, Denver
Christina King, D, Georgetown
Megan Klingenberg, D, Denver
Mary Moore, M, Villanova
Tess Osburn, A, Marquette
Olivia Ripple, A, Denver
Dani Serrano, A, Marquette
Mary Velner, D, Marquette
Emma Verhoest, DS, Villanova
A lot of this was pretty straight forward. Ripple, Serrano, Beran, Bodner, and Gwaku get in on their individual trophies. Keil and Osburn are the next best scorers in the Big East. Verhoest led the Big East in draw controls. Moore was the only other person to get more than one Midfielder of the Week. King and Klingenberg earned Defensive Player of the Week honors once each and have the ground ball/caused turnover numbers to justify their spots.
At that point, I just needed to fill in the last midfielder and defender spots. Christie is tied with teammate Sophia Corretjer in assists, but Christie has an advantage in goals and ground balls and caused turnovers. Velner is top 10 in both ground balls and caused turnovers, even without a DPOTW to back up her spot on the list.
Kind of took me by surprise that there’s very few Georgetown players on here given that they’re 60 minutes from a regular season title. However, I remember from writing the Georgetown preview that the Hoyas aren’t exactly a statistically impressive bunch, and if I’m basing a lot of this on stats, that’s how they get left out.
Questions? Complaints? That’s what the comments are for!
Follow Anonymous Eagle on social media
Facebook: AnonymousEagle
Instagram: AnonymousEagleSBN
Bluesky: AnonymousEagle
