Doolittle Latest To Earn WomensLacrosse.com Recognition
Meghan Doolittle

Grantham, PA — For the third time of the 2009 season, the Messiah women's lacrosse program has had an athlete honored by the esteemed womenslacrosse.com entity.

Freshman attack Meghan Doolittle was named the womenslacrosse.com NCAA Division III Rookie of the Week Tuesday, joining classmate Rachel Dirksen who captured the national award during the weeks of both Apr. 1 and Apr. 20.

Doolittle’s honor comes at perhaps the most crucial of times, as Messiah makes its second-ever appearance in the NCAA Tournament following a dramatic, 6-5 win over 16th-ranked Elizabethtown College in Saturday’s MAC Championship game. Doolittle was a key component in that win, scoring the game-winning goal with just 37 seconds remaining in regulation off a feed from sophomore Megan Bovenzi.

Doolittle scored a goal prior to the game winner and dished out a pair of assists in the win. She also scored twice and posted two assists in Messiah’s 10-8 win over FDU-Florham in the MAC Semi-Finals Thursday afternoon at Anderson Field.

On the season, Doolittle has scored 19 goals and dished out five assists.

In addition to Doolittle’s honor, senior goalie Jen Venter was named to the womenslacrosse.com’s honor roll, a deserved award after finishing the league tournament with 29 saves and just nine goals allowed — earning tournament MVP honors as a result.

Womenslacrosse.com “searches national game stories to come up with a Rookie-of-the-Week, an Offensive and Defensive Player-of-the-Week and members of the Honor Roll.” Never before has Messiah captured three weekly honors in a single season throughout the history of the association. This week’s complete list of award winners is available here.

Messiah will return to the field tomorrow afternoon, when they travel to Catholic University for First Round play in the NCAA Tournament. Game time is set for 5 p.m.