VWC’s Mertes Selected as Field Hockey Regional Coach of the Year

            Kim-Michael Mertes’ second season as the head field hockey coach at Virginia Wesleyan College has been rewarded with an unprecedented honor.

            Mertes has been named a 2003 Dita/National Field Hockey Coaches Association Division III South Region Coach of the Year, one of the top honors bestowed annually on collegiate mentors.  Mertes was one of only six coaches to receive the 2003 honor.  All six coaches are eligible to receive the National Coach of the Year award, which will be announced January 10, 2004, in Baltimore, Maryland.

            “I can’t take a lot of credit for this season,” said Mertes, the 2003 Co-Coach of the Year in the Old Dominion Athletic Conference.  “The team achieved everything for the program.  But, it does go to show that when a group of student-athletes believe and buy into what you are coaching everyday, the desired results will come.  I give the team all the credit for believing in what we do on the field.”

            The Marlins’ belief in Mertes’ way of field hockey resulted in the best season in 13 years of competition at Virginia Wesleyan.  The team rolled to a 16-0 regular season record, a first in program history, and won the regular season championship of the Old Dominion Athletic Conference with a 9-0 mark, another first.  The team’s reward came in the program’s first berth in the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s Division III national championship tournament.  The Marlins closed the year with an 18-2 record and set individual and team records in 19 categories.

            Mertes also coached the program’s second All-American, senior Jackie Griffin (Glen Gardner, N.J./Voorhees), who was named to the national second team; the highest level to date for a VWC field hockey player.

            The Marlins opened the season impressively, defeating 2002 North Coast Athletic Conference champion College of Wooster 4-0, and followed that with back-to-back victories over Division II Catawba College and soon-to-be Division I Longwood University.  That was the start of a school-record 18-game winning streak for the Marlins, highlighted by a 3-2 triumph over perennial national power Eastern Mennonite University.

            Other coaches joining Mertes in receiving the national honor are Wittenberg University’s Marianne Beshara (Great Lakes Region); Mount Holyoke College’s Andrea Whitcomb (New England East); Middlebury College’s Katharine DeLorenzo (New England West); SUNY-Oneonta’s Michele Dombrowski (North Atlantic); and Montclair State University’s Beth Gottung (South Atlantic).