Casale and de Wiljes Pick Up Patriot League Honors

Field Hockey's Melissa Casale and Anne-Meike de Wiljes have earned Patriot League Player of the Week honors after helping American to its seventh consecutive Patriot League Regular Season Championship. Casale was named the conference's Offensive Player of the Week while de Wiljes was named the Defensive Player of the Week.

Casale led the way for the Eagles this weekend, recording her first career hatrick against the Mountain Hawks on Sunday. Lehigh opened the game up with a quick goal, but their lead did not last long as Casale scored her first goal of the day off a deflection to the top of the cage to even the score at one. Right before halftime, with the Eagles leading 2-1, Casale got on the board again. This time, Casale deflected a shot by de Wiljes off of a penalty corner, giving the Eagles a two goal lead. Casale worked with sophomore classmate Alli Baron for the Eagles final score of the day, as Baron picked up a loose ball on the baseline and made a nice pass through a defender to Casale at the right post. This award is the first of Casale's career.

De Wiljes earned Defensive Player of the Week for the third time this season and seventh time in her career after a four-point performance over the weekend. The senior tallied one assist on Saturday in American's 2-1 loss to Iowa and returned to the field on Sunday to score a goal and add an assist. De Wiljes also helped to anchor the Eagles' defense as it allowed a combined eight shots on goal and seven penalty corners. With her two assists, de Wiljes's career total moved to 28, good for eighth place in the American and Patriot League record books, and her four points give her 54 for her career, 20th most in program history.

American will host the 2009 Patriot League Tournament next Friday and Saturday, November 6-7, at Jacobs Field. Top-seeded American will first play #4 Lehigh on Friday at 11 a.m. with #2 Bucknell and #3 Lafayette to meet at 1:30 p.m. The winner of these games will play on Saturday at 1 p.m. to decide the 2009 Patriot League Champion. Tickets to the tournament are priced at $5 for adults and $3 for youth 17 and under and can be purchased the day of the game at the gate.