Roll Profs: Rowan field hockey heads to the Final Four

Members of Rowan University’s field hockey team will continue their quest for a Division III national championship as they head to the NCAA Final Four this weekend.

Coach Michelle Andre’s team, which is 18-2 and on a 16-game winning streak, will meet top-ranked Middlebury College at 11 a.m. on Saturday, Nov. 20, in the national semifinals hosted by Trinity College in Hartford, CT. Watch live coverage of the game here.

Johns Hopkins and Trinity are competing in the other semifinal game.

The winners of the semifinal games will compete for the national championship on Sunday, Nov. 21, at 1 p.m. at Trinity.

Last weekend, the fourth-ranked Profs defeated Washington and Lee in a shutout to earn a Final Four berth—Rowan’s fifth all-time appearance in the national semifinals and the squad’s first since 2012. The Profs are seeking their second national title. They won their first in 2002.

“The whole team is all in,” says Andre, a Rowan alumna now in her sixth year as head coach. “Every day they are out there making each other better and they are their best supporters. It’s a total team effort to get to this point.”

Rowan earned an automatic bid to the Division III tournament by winning the NJAC title earlier this month. The Profs have won the NJAC twice in the past three years.

Exciting fall campaigns

While the field hockey team seeks a national title, in men’s cross country, junior Kevin Lauer will represent Rowan and try to do the same in the Division III Cross Country Championships on Saturday, Nov. 20, in Louisville, KY. Watch the competition here.

Lauer (at right) placed eighth overall at last weekend’s NCAA Metro Region Championship, hosted by Rowan. The Profs finished fourth.

Meanwhile, Rowan women’s volleyball and men’s and women’s soccer also completed exciting fall seasons.

Women’s volleyball won the New Jersey Athletic Conference title at home earlier this month for Coach Dena Jespersen, who was named the NJAC Coach of the Year and the American Volleyball Coaches Association Region 4 Coach of the Year.

It was the squad’s fourth NJAC title and first since 2004, earning the Profs an automatic bid to the Division III tournament. View coverage of the team’s title NJAC run here.

Rowan fell in the first round of the tournament to Springfield, ending its season at 27-6.

After losing a heartbreaker to Kean on penalty kicks in the NJAC championship game, men’s soccer secured an at-large bid in the NCAA tournament. The Profs defeated Mount Saint Vincent, but fell to Christopher Newport in the second round.

Coach Scott Baker’s squad ended the season 13-4-2. The Profs made the tourney for the second straight season and for the 29^th time in program history.

Women’s soccer lost on penalty kicks in the NJAC Championship, falling to top-ranked and undefeated TCNJ earlier this month.

Coach Scott Leacott, the winningest and longest tenured coach in the history of the women’s soccer program, led the Profs to a 15-4-1 season. Rowan was 10-1-0 at home.