Dartmouth Opens 2018 Season Saturday at No. 18 UMass

GAME 1
Dartmouth Big Green (0-0) vs.
UMass Minutewomen (0-0)
Date: Saturday, Feb. 17, 2018 | 1 PM
Location: Amherst, Mass. | Garber Field
All-Time Series: Dartmouth, 20-9-1
Last Meeting: 3.4.2009 | L, 13-10 | Amherst
Streak: 0-1

Live Stats | Live Video | Twitter: @DartmouthWLAX

SATURDAY'S GAME
The Dartmouth women's lacrosse team opens the 2018 season Saturday afternoon at No. 18 UMass.

SCOUTING THE MINUTEWOMEN
• To say UMass has dominated the Atlantic 10 recently would be an understatement as they have won the previous nine conference titles. The current 54-game conference unbeaten streak is the longest in NCAA history.
• The team went 17-4 last season and reached the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
• The Minutewomen's 128 wins over the last seven years are second nationally only to Maryland (145). The team protects its home field well, too, posting a 29-1 mark in their last 30 games at Garber Field.
• Leading the way this season for UMass is last year's A-10 Offensive Player of the Year Holly Turner, who, as a sophomore in 2017, posted 89 points on 44 goals and 45 assists.

AGAINST UMASS
• Saturday marks the 31st all-time meeting between the two programs, but the first in nine years.
• UMass won the last meeting all the way back in 2009, taking a game in Amherst, 13-10.
• That loss snapped a 19-game win streak in the series for the Green and White who had won every game between the two from 1988 through 2008. Dartmouth won two games in 1988, including an ECAC Final, while the teams did not compete against one another during the 2004 season.

PRESEASON POLLS
The Big Green were picked to finish fifth in the Ivy League's preseason poll as conducted by media members and the conference's sports information directors. For the second straight season, Princeton, Penn and Cornell occupied the top-three spots, while Harvard was the other team slotted ahead of the team from the Upper Valley.

46 AND COUNTING
The 2018 season marks the 46th for the women's lacrosse team at Dartmouth. The Big Green have won 11 Ivy League Championships, one Ivy League Tournament Championship, earned 11 berths into the NCAA Tournament and have reached the Final Four four times and the 2006 national championship game since the pioneering 1973 season in which the team played just four games.

OPENERS
Thanks to an 11-9 win at UMass Lowell in 2017's first game, Dartmouth improved to 24-21 all-time in season-opening contests.

IF YOU THOUGHT THE LAST TWO YEARS WERE EARLY
Each of the last two seasons have seen Dartmouth open the season on the earliest date in program history.
• Two years ago, the team hosted UMass Lowell on Feb. 20, winning, 18-2.
• Last season, the Big Green and River Hawks once again played in the opener, this time on Feb. 18. That eclipsed the 2016 opener for the earliest in program history as Dartmouth held on for an 11-9 win.
• Then there is the 2018 season where Saturday's game at UMass on Feb. 17 sets the new mark for earliest game.

NEW FACES
Second-year head coach Danielle Spencer has added to her staff for the 2018 campaign. Joining assistant coach Nicole Price on the sidelines this spring will be Nicole Flores and volunteer assistant Morgan McDonald.

MAKEUP OF THE TEAM
This year's team features 34 players on the roster.
• Nine freshmen and nine sophomores give the Big Green 18 underclassmen
• The 16 upperclassmen come from a 10-member junior class and six members of the senior Class of 2018.

RETURNING LEADERS
Here are the top-returning players from last season in each of the major statistical categories (overall team rank):
Points: Elizabeth Mastrio, 39 (2nd)
Goals: Elizabeth Mastrio, 28 (2nd)
Assists: Kierra Sweeney, 14 (1st)
Ground Balls: Kiera Vrindten, 42 (1st)
Draw Controls: Kathryn Giroux, 108*^ (1st)
Free-Position Goals: Elizabeth Mastrio, 17^ (1st)
Shots: Elizabeth Mastrio, 66 (2nd)
Shots on Goal: Elizabeth Mastrio, 49 (2nd)
Caused Turnovers: Katie Bourque, 16 (T-1st)
^ - Led the Ivy League | * - Dartmouth and Ivy League record

SEASON PREVIEW
A complete preview of the 2018 Dartmouth women's lacrosse team can be found here.

2018 Season Preview: @DartmouthWLax ready to take the next step this springhttps://t.co/tkHxS5pu7B
— Dartmouth Athletics (@dartmouthsports) February 6, 2018

WHAT'S AHEAD?
Dartmouth will open the home portion of its schedule on Wednesday, Feb. 21 against New Hampshire. The Big Green and Wildcats will meet at Scully-Fahey Field at 3 p.m. in a game that will be carried live on the Ivy League Network.

Schedules