By being held scoreless in today’s game against Ithaca College, Stevens Women’s Lacrosse captain Alyssa Pigott has fallen just short of a remarkable NCAA streak that started way back on March 3rd of 2007. I have been told by our Athletics Department that the NCAA record stands at 68 games even though the record I found was Amy Appelt from the University of Virginia (according to NCAA Women’s D1 Records: Lacrosse) who scored a goal for her squad in 66 consecutive games. Appelt set the record over the course of her four years at Virginia from Feb. 27, 2002 to March 13, 2005 and ended up scoring 83 goals in her 85 career games at Virginia. Pigott’s streak snapped in her 68th collegiate game, just one game short of tying the all-time NCAA mark. She did however set the Division III mark, beating the record of Scranton’s Liz Baumbach who scored in 45 straight from March 28, 2001 to May 10, 2003. (NCAA Women’s D3 Records: Lacrosse)
Alyssa, who had scored a goal in every single game of her career until today, has scored 222 goals and remarkably has scored 6 goals (4 times) in a game as many times as she has been held to just one. Not surprisingly, a very balanced scorer both at home and on the road, she has averaged 3.26 goals per game in 31 home games while averaging 0.01 goals more in 37 games away from Hoboken. While amassing a 50-18 record since her freshman year, she has also averaged 3.46 in matches her squad has won as opposed to just 2.72 in losses. As if all those numbers were not enough, it is remarkable that she had scored a goal in every single game of her collegiate career up until the one earlier today in Ithaca, New York.
Usually I don’t write about an individual student-athlete setting some record but I thought this one deserves some attention. I had initially found out about the record a couple of weeks ago but due to a superstitious nature of a couple people, decided to hold off posting about it until she had at least tied the record. It also gave me some time to look up and calculate a couple of these stats so I guess it worked out in the end.
Alyssa and her Ducks went undefeated on a Spring Break road trip in Texas earlier this season by defeating Bowdoin College and SUNY Oswego before coming home and dropping a tough one against #6 Colby College in another competitive battle between two ranked teams. I talked with Coach Celine Cunningham earlier in the season on Coach’s Corner where she spoke of the high goals that this squad has said and we saw it by the continued display of excellence on the field with a thrilling triple overtime win against #8 ranked Union College early on in the season.
There was also a piece in Lacrosse Magazine in early March titled “Pigott Ready To Speak Up For Ducks” where they discuss the develop of Pigott not only as a player but as a leader and you can see that success has translated to wins against ranked opponents as opposed to the first year or two. With overall records of 12-8, 14-6, and 16-2 the past three season and 3-4 against ranked opponents (3-1 in their last 4 outings), you can see the dramatic improvement for the Ducks in the last 4 years.
Officially from Stevens, Alyssa was credited with goal number 200 in the win against Union College but my numbers only had her at 198 goals through the three games this season even with through using the ‘official’ statistics from Stevens Athletics. Breaking down her data year by year, she is credited with 53, 67, and 73 goals in her three full seasons and 30 so far this year which puts her up to 222. I only counted 52 goals her freshman year but that is an argument for a different day.
Once again, congratulations to Alyssa Pigott on a remarkable individual run, setting the D-III record and continued success to her and the rest of the squad the remainder of the season.
Feel free to check out statistics and game recaps from each of her games through out here career: 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010 available via StevensDucks.com or follow Stevens Athletics on twitter @StevensDucks.
