Kenyon’s field hockey season opened with a 4-0 victory at Ohio Wesleyan University on Tuesday, following a 2014 season during which the Ladies captured the North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC) regular season title, the NCAC tournament title and made it to the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division III tournament. In the opener, four different players scored goals as part of a well-balanced attack that was too much for the Battling Bishops to overcome.

While the Ladies graduated key players Rachel Hall, Julie Freedman, Cecelia Depman this past spring, the team believes it still has the players and talent to defend its 2014 title. Coach Jacque DeMarco, who was named the 2015 NCAC coach of the year, has high hopes for the team, which retained key contributing players from last year’s team.

Maddie Breschi ’16, a midfielder who led the team in goals during its last season, was named a 2014 National Field Hockey Coaches Association (NFHCA) first team all-American, as well as NCAC defensive player of the year.

But Breschi is not resting on her laurels from last year, and hopes the team can continue its success. “My personal goals are my team goals, and if we can achieve our team goal then I will have successfully achieved my own goals,” she said.

The team will also rely upon its strong class of sophomores. Goalkeeper Sarah Speroff ’18, who was named First Team NFHCA all-region in addition to being named the NCAC newcomer of the year, will return to anchor the defense. Paige Beyer ’18 and Kelsey Truik ’18 return to join Speroff on the defensive end, where they both started every game last season, while Shannon Hart ’18 figures to slide into a starting role on offense, where she scored 11 goals and dished out five assists last year.

The path to a second-consecutive NCAC title, however, will be far from easy. “We will have to be on top of our game and really work to compete at our very best against every opponent,” Demarco said.

The Ladies have two away games this weekend; first, they’ll face Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore on Saturday before traveling to York College of Pennsylvania for a game on Sunday.