Four Ravens Earn
NE-10 Weekly Honors
Clifton named Player of the Week, Thorpe Goalkeeper of the Week in men’s soccer
Ester collects women’s soccer
Goalkeeper of the Week award
Hookstadt named Setter of the Week
in volleyball 

RINDGE, N.H. (October 15, 2007) – Four Franklin Pierce University student-athletes collected weekly honors from the Northeast-10 Conference on Monday.

Grad student David Clifton (London, England) was named Player of the Week, while senior All-American James Thorpe (East Longmeadow, Mass./Bridgton Academy) earned Goalkeeper of the Week honors in men’s soccer. Junior Brittany Ester (Toms River, N.J./Toms River East) was named women’s soccer Goalkeeper of the Week, while junior Karissa Hookstadt (Camarillo, Calif./Camarillo) collected Setter of the Week accolades in volleyball.

Clifton, who earns the second Player of the Week award of his career (both coming in the last three weeks), led the Franklin Pierce men’s soccer team to a pair of key wins over regionally-ranked opponents with four goals for eight points. He netted all three goals in Wednesday’s 3-0 victory at Merrimack, ranked fourth in the New England region, and followed that up with a goal in Saturday’s 3-0 win against Saint Michael’s College, ranked seventh in the region.

Clifton has been on a tear of late for Franklin Pierce, notching hat tricks in three of its last five matches. Despite missing the first four games of the season due to a preseason injury, he leads the NE-10 with 34 points and 16 goals to go with two assists. He has netted 11 goals over the Ravens last five contests and eight in their last four games. Clifton’s team-high four match-winning goals are good for second in the NE-10.

Clifton has emerged among Franklin Pierce’s career leaders while just in his second season (26 matches). He ranks 12^th in program history with 24 career goals, while his 51 career points are good for 16^th all-time. Clifton earned third team All-Northeast-10 honors in 2006.

Thorpe, named Goalkeeper of the Week for the second time this season (16^th career), posted a pair of shutouts in a 2-0 week for the Franklin Pierce men’s soccer team. He made a season-high nine saves, one shy of his career-best, in Wednesday’s 3-0 win at Merrimack, before going untested in Saturday’s shutout of Saint Michael’s.

Thorpe has played all 1,300 minutes in Franklin Pierce’s goal over 14 matches this season, posting an 11-1-2 mark. He enters Wednesday’s regular season home finale with Southern Connecticut State University just 43:05 shy of the NCAA Division II career minutes played record of 7,580 set by former Southern Connecticut State All-American Bo Oshoniyi (1990-93). Thorpe has posted a 0.76 GAA (4^th NE-10) and .761 save percentage (9^th) to go with seven shutouts (2^nd) this fall.

Thorpe has pretty much re-written the Franklin Pierce goalkeeping record books over his career. In addition to his near NCAA record 7,536:55 in goal over 83 career matches played (82 starts), he has compiled a program and NE-10 record 44 shutouts, while his 0.69 career GAA is on pace to shatter the program mark and his .809 save percentage is good for second all-time.

Franklin Pierce boasts a 59-13-11 record over the past four seasons with Thorpe between the goal posts. Last season, Thorpe posted a Division II-best and program record 0.45 goals against average, while his 14 shutouts as a freshman led DII and set a program record. Thorpe is the first three-time NE-10 Goalkeeper of the Year in Conference history and has earned All-America status two-straight seasons.

The Franklin Pierce men’s soccer team (11-1-2, 10-0-1 NE-10), ranked eighth in last week’s NSCAA/adidas Division II poll and first in the New England Region, needs just a draw in one of its last two regular season matches to clinch its third-straight NE-10 regular season crown. The Ravens host rival Southern Connecticut State, ranked sixth in the region, on Wednesday at 7 p.m. The contest is a rematch of both the 2006 NE-10 Tournament and NCAA Regional Championships. Franklin Pierce captured its first NE-10 Tournament in a penalty shootout after the two sides played to a scoreless draw, before the Owls won the regional final, 2-1, a week later with the winning goal coming with just 20-seconds to play in regulation.

Hookstadt earns her second Setter of the Week award of the season (and career) after averaging 12.00 assists, 3.12 digs, a block and 0.88 kills per game in a 1-1 week for Franklin Pierce. She set a career-high with 60 assists in Tuesday’s 3-2 loss at Merrimack College, marking the highest assist total by a Ravens player since Bethany Findley had 60 against Keene State College on October 20, 2003. Hookstadt added 14 digs, five blocks and four kills against the Warriors, and then posted 36 assists, 11 digs, three blocks and three kills in Saturday’s 3-0 win at Southern Connecticut State.

Hookstadt currently ranks fourth in the Northeast-10 with 10.22 assists per game, and is one of only two NE-10 players with more than 1,000 assists so far this season (1,002). Besides assists, Hookstadt also leads the Ravens with 30 service aces (0.31/game) and ranks fourth on the team in both digs (229, 2.34/gm) and blocks (a career-high 69, 0.70/gm).

In 80 career matches (298 games), Hookstadt has totaled 2,910 assists (9.77/gm), 717 digs (2.41/gm) and 263 kills (0.88/gm). She enters the week just 73 assists shy of her single-season career best.

 Franklin Pierce (14-12, 8-3 NE-10), in fourth place in the Northeast-10 and ranked tenth in the first NCAA Division II Northeast Regional rankings release last week, is back in action on Tuesday for its third match in a season-long eight-match road trip ay Saint Michael’s College at 7 p.m.

Ester, a transfer from Grossmont College in California, collects her first Goalkeeper of the Week honor after posting a 0.48 goals against average and .875 save percentage with a shutout while averaging 3.5 saves per match in a 1-0-1 week for the Franklin Pierce women’s soccer team. She made four saves to preserve a 0-0 double-overtime draw with Bentley College, ranked ninth in the New England region, on Tuesday. She finished with three stops, while yielding just one goal, in 77-minutes of action in Saturday’s 4-2 win at American International College.

Ester has played 890:58 over ten matches, nine starts, in goal over her first season at Franklin Pierce. She has posted 6-0-3 record and 0.61 goals against average (4^th NE-10) with a .833 save percentage (4^th) and four shutouts (6^th).

The Franklin Pierce women’s soccer team (10-1-4, 8-1-4 NE-10), ranked 18^th in the most recent NSCAA/adidas Division II poll and third in the New England region, is back in action tomorrow night for a non-conference clash with the University of New Haven at 6 p.m.