Starting Dec. 20 through Dec. 29, we are reliving the top games, championships, awards, firsts, and memories from the year that was in the Ten For 2010 series. You the fans can vote on your top story of the year starting Dec. 29, and the results will be unveiled on New Year's Day. We present our top 10 in roughly chronological order, not in a ranking of any sort.
Ten For 2010
Dec. 20:
The Hall of Champions
Dec. 21:
Women's Basketball In The NCAA Tournament
Dec. 22: Lax Comes Back
Dec. 23:
Softball's NCAA Run
Dec. 24:
Field Hockey Is #1
National rankings are funny things. Any coach will tell you that a) they don't mean anything, and b) they don't pay attention to them. But there is something special for any program in any sport when you get to tack that magical "#1" in front of your name. And that's exactly what the LVC field hockey team got to do for one week in October.
Oct. 16. The Dutchmen, ranked second in the nation, take care of business and move to 14-0 with an 8-0 blowout win over Alvernia. A huge game with then-#3 Messiah is on the horizon for the middle of that week. In New England, the nation's top team, Tufts, plays conference foe Trinity - and loses in overtime.
All the sudden, LVC is the presumptive #1 team in NCAA Division III. And when the NFHCA poll comes out on Tuesday, the day before the Messiah game, it confirms it - LVC and Messiah would play for the first time ever as the nation's top two teams.
It was the first time since 2000 and only third time that LVC had earned the top spot. The Dutchmen had been riding the nation's #1 offense, led by eventual all-Americans
Jocelyn Novak and
Caitlin Vasey, to their perfect record.
Of course, things didn't work out the next day. LVC and Messiah played an absolutely classic, with Messiah prevailing in overtime, but it didn't take away from the fact that Lebanon Valley was truly one of the nation's elite programs.
The Dutchmen went on another great postseason run, making the NCAA Elite Eight and coming within an overtime goal of the final four. They ended up with the national scoring leader in Novak (who smashed record after record with 39 goals, and became the fastest player in NCAA history to clear 100 for her career) and the national assists leader with Vasey's 24 (which was also an LVC record). The team scored 119 goals - a program record and the fifth-most by a team ever. It all capped an incredible four-year offensive run in which LVC scored 100 or more goals from 2007 through 2010. In all of Division III history, only Ursinus, over the same period, could claim the same accomplishment.
