Corsairs' Emily Valorz and Shannon Curran
earned NEWLA All-Southern Division honors

(Dartmouth, MA) - UMass Dartmouth's women's lacrosse team posted a 5-7 overall record for the 2000 season with teammates Emily Valorz (Milton, MA) and Shannon Curran (Framingham, MA) representing the Corsairs on the New England Women�s Lacrosse Alliance All-Southern Division All-Star team.

In their third season as a varsity women's lacrosse team, Coach Jerry Jennings' team finished 3-4 in the NEWLA�s Southern Division. However, the Corsairs failed to qualify for the playoffs for the first time. After running off four straight wins and five out of six to improve to 5-3 at mid-season, the Corsairs dropped key conference games to Eastern Connecticut, Bridgewater State and Western New England College to fall out of the playoff chase.

Valorz had an outstanding sophomore season for UMass Dartmouth leading the Corsairs in every scoring category. Appearing in all 12 UMass Dartmouth games at her attack position, Valorz had team-highs in goals (44), assists (16), points (60) and shots on goal (95). Valorz twice scored six goals in a game, including six against Elms College and another six against Nichols College. Against Linfield College she had five goals and three assists plus another five-goal game with two assists against the University of Redlands.

A first-year attack/midfielder, Curran didn't score nearly as many goals as Valorz, because her contributions came mainly on the defensive end. Curran contributed 14 goals, tied for third on the team, plus an assist for 15 points in UMass Dartmouth's 12 games. But she was selected to the All-Southern Division team for her efforts on defense where she was one of the Corsairs� team leaders. UMass Dartmouth's defense helped the Corsairs hold a 12.17 � 10.08 scoring edge over its opponents, holding the opposition to 220 shots on goal, while the Corsairs offense managed 324 shots on goal.

When Valorz wasn't scoring goals at a record pace for UMass Dartmouth, senior defender Aimee Williams (Centerville, MA) was providing some scoring punch for the Corsairs. Williams netted 32 goals, second best for the Corsairs, along with 7 assists for 39 points in 12 games. Williams' best offensive performance was a five-goal game against Keene State College. Rounding out the Corsairs' top scorers were junior midfielder Jess Delaney (Winchester, MA) (11-8-19), junior attack Karyn Besegai (Plymouth, MA) (13-5-18), senior defender and co-captain Stacy Millen (Weston, MA) (14-4-18).

Junior goalie and co-captain Kristen Keene (Sudbury, MA) handled the bulk of the Corsairs' goaltending chores for the year, appearing in 11 of UMass Dartmouth�s 12 games. In 596 minutes of action, Keene came up with 89 saves and allowed 101 goals for a 10.2 goals against average and a saves percentage of 46.8%. Backing Keene up were sophomore goalies Kerry Duffy (Quincy, MA) (3 games, 12.8 GAA) and Jen Pappas (Russell, MA) (1 game). Keene and Pappas teamed up for the Corsairs� best defensive effort of the year, an 18-0 shutout victory over Nichols College.