COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- Nineteen members of the 2025 NESCAC champion Bates field hockey team were named to the NFHCA Division III National Academic Squad and six earned "Scholar of Distinction" honors, as announced this February by the National Field Hockey Coaches Association. 

On Tuesday, the Bobcats were one of 78 Division III programs to earn the NFHCA Division III National Academic Team Award, for recording a team grade-point average of 3.5 or higher during the fall semester of the current academic year.

The NFHCA Scholars of Distinction program recognizes student-athletes who have achieved a cumulative grade-point average of 3.9 or higher through the first semester of the 2025-26 academic year. 

The Bobcats who earned Scholar of Distinction honors this year are: first-year Sophia Cordoni (San Jose, Calif.), junior captain Haley Dwight (West Newbury, Mass.), first-year Ciara Geraghty (Newburyport, Mass.), senior Summer Gordon (North Andover, Mass.), junior Sophie O'Sullivan (Wellesley, Mass.), and first-year Catherine Russell (Newton, Mass.), with Gordon now a four-time honoree.

Cordoni, Dwight, Geraghty, Gordon, O'Sullivan, and Russell join junior Elena Agosti (North Andover, Mass.), first-year Ali Apigian (McLean, Va.), sophomore Bella Bigelow (Alburgh, Vt.), sophomore Elsa Copeland (Toronto, Ontario), first-year Ameera Dhillon (Surrey, British Columbia), sophomore Ava Donohue (Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.), sophomore Rose Gordon (North Andover, Mass.), sophomore Lilly Hogan (Westport, Conn.), senior Kaili Jacobsen (Fairfield, Conn.), junior Sophie Jullienne (Hong Kong, China), senior captain Brooke Moloney-Kolenberg (Winchester, Mass.), senior captain Lucy Norris (Chicago, Ill.), and first-year Molly Rhatigan (Holderness, N.H.) on the NFHCA National Academic Squad, which recognizes undergraduate collegiate student-athletes who have achieved a cumulative grade-point average of 3.5 or higher through the first semester of the current academic year.

Norris and Gordon are four-time selections to the National Academic Squad.

In 2025, the Bates field hockey team broke the program record for wins in one season with 16, won the NESCAC for the first time, and advanced to the NCAA quarterfinals for the second straight year.

The National Field Hockey Coaches Association (NFHCA) is a nonprofit organization serving field hockey coaches and supporters of the game from across the United States. The mission of the association is to champion, strengthen, and celebrate field hockey coaches and the game. The NFHCA strives to be the organization that every field hockey coach looks to for the resources to grow in the game and the inspiration to stay in the game.