Helen Bradley

Staff Writer

Monday afternoon, PSAC released their weekly ‘Athlete of the Week’ awards.

This week, ESU’s own, midfielder Kelli Shapiro was announced as the Field Hockey Athlete of the Week.

Adding to this award, Shapiro was named NFHCA Division II Field Hockey Offensive player.

From Ocean Township, NJ, Shapiro started playing field hockey in sixth grade.

Now, as a senior majoring in Speech Pathology.

Over this past week, Shapiro totaled six goals and four assists across both victories against Molloy and Mansfield.

These statistics only represent a small part of Shapiro’s play. With many great plays being produced from Shapiro’s involvement, earned her both the PSAC and the NFHCA weekly awards. 

Altogether, Shapiro has scored 12 goals and recorded nine assists this season so far.

For Shapiro, this award came as a bit of a surprise.

“I never really thought about getting the athlete of the week award as feels it is more important to focus on the games ahead of us rather than the accolades anyone on the team could get,” said Shapiro

However, the award was met with excitement.

“It means a lot to know that other coaches and teams also recognize how hard I am working this season,” said Shapiro.

However, these recognitions have not been earned solely.

“My teammates have helped me to achieve this award. It would be impossible to win games alone,” said Shapiro.

“Every game we have won and lost this year has been as a team and we all take responsibility for each win and loss. Together, we are better than any individual player.”

Shapiro worked as hard as she could at each practice, giving 100% whenever possible. 

Shapiro says that the biggest help was her teammates making her work harder and pushing her to become a better player.

Unfortunately, ESU was knocked out of the PSAC championship during their semi-final game against Shippensburg.

Yet, Shapiro still has high hopes that the team will get an NCAA berth and believes the team has the ability to come back from the loss stronger. 

“Our team is excited and eager to see where we fall in the NCAA tournament,” said Shapiro. “And hopefully will bring home the 2018 National Championship title.”

Email Helen at:

Hbradley2@live.esu.edu