Big South Announces 2023 Women's Lacrosse Annual Award Winners
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (www.BigSouthSports.com) – Mercer’s
Shannon Urey (Chattanooga, Tenn.) has been voted the 2023 Big South Women’s Lacrosse Offensive Player of the Year by the Conference’s head coaches, it was announced this afternoon by the league office. In addition, Campbell’s
Sam Bischoff (Pomona, N.Y.) is the Midfielder of the Year, while teammate
Rebekah Taylor (Forest Hill, Md.) and Mercer’s
Emma Pizzo (Charleston, S.C.) shared the Defensive Player of the Year honor from the panel. Longwood attacker
Sophia Passa (Gainesville, Va.) was tabbed Freshman of the Year, while Mercer’s
Samantha Eustace was voted Coach of the Year. The Big South’s sports information directors voted Presbyterian College’s
Kendall Goldfarb (Longwood, Fla.) as the Women’s Lacrosse Scholar-Athlete of the Year.
Urey finished the regular-season second in the nation with a league-leading 72 goals and 4.24 goals per game. Her 79 overall points and 4.65 points per game are tied for first in the Big South, as well as rank 12th and 16th in the country, respectively. Urey’s five game-winning goals and 0.88 free position goals per game are also tops in the conference. In nine Big South matches this season, she paced the circuit with 41 goals and 4.56 goals per contest, and notched 46 points (5.11 points per game). Urey scored a Big South single-match record 11 goals in Mercer’s win over Wofford on April 12, scored seven times against High Point on April 1, and tallied a hat trick in all but one league contest this season. The two-time Big South Offensive Player of the Week honoree posted 14 hat tricks in 2023 -- including six games with at least five goals. Urey received five first-place votes and 19 points in the voting, ahead of Furman’s
Meagan Beal (two first-place votes and 16 points) and Campbell’s
Rasa Welsh (two first-place votes and 15 points).
Bischoff repeats as the Midfielder of the Year honoree after finishing the regular-season second in the Big South in goals scored (49) and goals per game (2.88). She also ranks seventh in points per game (3.47), and is among the league leaders in draw controls (72) and draw controls per game (4.24). Bischoff leads the Camels in goals and is second on the squad with 59 points, and also picked up 14 ground balls along with scoring nine free positional goals. In nine Big South matches, Bischoff scored 21 goals and netted 26 points while recording 42 draw controls. She was the Big South Offensive Player of the Week following the opening weekend of the season, collected eight hat tricks, six games with five-plus points, and scored a goal in every match she played in 2023. In the voting, Bischoff received five first-place votes and 18 points, ahead of Furman’s
Hannah Dintino and Mercer’s
Kayla Soltys, who finished with 15 points and two first-place votes each.
This is the third time with co-winners for Big South Defensive Player of the Year award. Taylor won the honor in 2022, and this season earned two Defensive Player of the Week plaudits. In 2023, she set the school-record for single-season caused turnovers with 35, which is tied for the top spot among the conference leaders. She also snared 37 ground balls and helped Campbell lead the NCAA in both ground balls and caused turnovers per game, and is among the national individual leaders. Taylor averaged 2.00 caused turnovers in her nine Big South appearances this season, and had seven games with at least three takeaways -- including a program-record tying five caused turnovers in a win over Longwood on April 15.
Pizzo tallied 36 caused turnovers along with 41 ground balls and 43 draw controls this season. She had nine games this season with multiple caused turnovers, ground balls and draw controls in the same contest. The March 21 Big South Defensive Player of the Week selection posted a season-high seven ground balls vs. Kennesaw State (March 19), season-high five ground balls twice (vs. KSU and against Furman on April 15), and a season-best seven draw controls vs. High Point on April 1. The lock-down defender helped the Bears ranks 10th in the nation in scoring defense with 8.82 goals allowed.
Taylor (three first-place votes) and Pizzo (four first-place votes) tied with 16 points in the voting, ahead of Furman’s
Katelyn Sousa (one first-place vote and nine points).
Passa is the first Lancer to be voted Big South Freshman of the Year. She was the Big South Freshman of the Week twice in 2023, which came in back-to-back weeks -- April 4 and April 11. Passa notched 22 goals and 10 assists for 32 points in her nine Big South appearances this season for averages of 2.44 goals and 3.56 points, in addition to 19 draw controls. She scored six goals vs. Wofford on April 5, and had three additional 4-goal games during the conference season (vs. Furman, High Point and Winthrop). Overall, Passa was Longwood’s second-leading goal scorer with 28 and ranked third on the team with 38 points. She finished the season with 10 ground balls and 27 draw controls. Passa received three first-place votes and 18 points in the Freshman of the Year voting, just ahead of Presbyterian’s
Lilly Phillips (14 points, four first-place votes).
Eustace led the Bears to the first 9-0 Big South season in league history for Mercer’s first outright Big South regular-season championship. Mercer is the No. 1 seed in this week’s Big South Women’s Lacrosse Championship and enters the tournament as the defending champion. Mercer paces the conference with 293 goals and a Big South single-season record pace of 17.24 goals per game. The Bears are also tops in points (397), points per game (23.35), draw controls (299), draw controls per game (17.59), shots (577), shots per game (33.94) and goals against average (8.82). Mercer’s +8.4 overall scoring margin is also pacing ahead of the Big South single-season mark. In the Big South season, the Bears led the way with 175 goals and 19.44 goals per game; 172 draw controls and 19.11 draw controls per game; fewest turnovers (13.44) and GAA (7.00), and out-scored league opponents, 175-63 for a +12.4 average scoring margin. Eustace finished with four first-place votes and 17 points in the voting to edge out Presbyterian College’s
Eric Clakeley (four first-place votes and 16 points), followed by Campbell’s
Dawn Easley (one first-place vote and 10 points).
Goldfarb is a 4.0 student as an Early Childhood Education major. She appeared in all 17 matches this season for the Blue Hose and led the squad with 16 caused turnovers and 29 ground balls.
The Big South also announced the 2023 All-Conference and All-Academic teams Thursday, which are listed below. The All-Conference team is voted by the head coaches and features two teams of three attackers, three midfielders, three defenders, one goalkeeper and three at-large selections, plus five honorable mention honorees regardless of position. The All-Academic Team consists of one student-athlete from each institution that meets the criteria and is nominated and selected by the league’s sports information directors.
2023 BIG SOUTH WOMEN’S LACROSSE ALL-CONFERENCE TEAMS
FIRST TEAM ALL-CONFERENCE
ATT – Shannon Urey, Sr., Mercer
ATT – Meagan Beal, Sr., Furman
ATT – Rasa Welsh, Jr., Campbell
MF – Sam Bischoff, Jr., Campbell
MF – Hannah Dintino, Sr., Furman
MF – Kayla Soltys, Sr., Mercer
D – Rebekah Taylor, Sr., Campbell
D – Emma Pizzo, Gr., Mercer
D – Katelyn Sousa, Jr., Furman
GK – Kate Vanderlinde, Sr., Mercer
AL – Mena Loescher, ATT, Gr., High Point
AL – Chandler Stewart, D, Sr., Campbell
AL – Grace Briggs, D, Sr., Gardner-Webb
SECOND TEAM ALL-CONFERENCE
ATT – Bria Foley, Soph., Gardner-Webb
ATT – Anna Roser, Soph., Furman
ATT – Maddi Koury, Jr., Mercer
MF – Willow Hammond, Soph., Presbyterian
MF – Lauren Cerretani, Sr., Longwood
MF – Margaret Gleason, Sr., Radford
D – Jenna Kraft, Gr., High Point
D – Heather Lobas, Gr., Gardner-Webb
D – Julia Koenig, Jr., Longwood
GK – Olivia Hunter, Jr., Radford
AL – Emma Genovese, MF, Gr., High Point
AL – Leah Hurley, MF, Sr., Wofford
AL – Kay Rosselli, MF, Jr., High Point
HONORABLE MENTION ALL-CONFERENCE
Lyndsey Lewis, MF, Sr., Mercer
Molly Dankowski, MF, Gr., Winthrop
Pia Cavallaro, ATT, Jr., High Point
Sophia Passa, ATT, Fr., Longwood
Ava Scudillo, D, Sr., High Point (tie)
Lily Barger, D, Fr., Wofford (tie)
ALL-ACADEMIC TEAM
Sam Bischoff, Campbell
Hannah Dintino, Furman
Brittany Sherrod, Gardner-Webb
Caitlyn Baehr, High Point
Harper Melton, Longwood
Shannon Urey, Mercer
Kendall Goldfarb, Presbyterian
Ashlyn Grogan, Radford
Maddy Hodgson, Winthrop
Leah Hurley, Wofford
OFFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE YEAR
Shannon Urey, ATT, Mercer
MIDFIELDER OF THE YEAR
Sam Bischoff, Campbell
CO-DEFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE YEAR
Rebekah Taylor, D, Campbell
Emma Pizzo, D, Mercer
FRESHMAN OF THE YEAR
Sophia Passa, ATT, Longwood
COACH OF THE YEAR
Samantha Eustace, Mercer
SCHOLAR-ATHLETE OF THE YEAR
Kendall Goldfarb, Presbyterian