BEVERLY, Mass. – In many ways, more than a season came to an end on Wednesday night at North Field for the Keene State College field hockey team.  So, too, did the collegiate career of NCAA leading scorer Grace Bazin, 514 wins later, the career of long-time head coach Amy Watson, and that of nine KSC seniors.  But none of it does not come without an extreme amount of accomplishment, with Bazin setting a new single-season goals record and the Owls as a team making it back-to-back Little East Conference tournament championships this past Saturday and a league-record 16 overall, all under Watson, who reached the NCAA tournament second round five times.

The Owls could not reach the round of 16 this year, as eighth-ranked Endicott College scored seven goals in the second half to beat KSC 9-0 on their home field in a rematch of an October 1 game played in Keene that the Gulls won 5-0 despite a shot and penalty corner count that were close.

That was not the case tonight, and ultimately Endicott cracked open a 2-0 game by scoring three times in only 1:19 midway through the third quarter to build an insurmountable 5-0 lead before scoring four more times in the fourth.  Reagan Hicks, who did not score in the regular season meeting, had four goals on five shots.  Tori Swanson, who had a hat trick in the October 1 matchup in Keene, added a goal and two assists while Riley Perkins had a goal and an assist.

Endicott got on the board late in the first quarter to take the lead when Swanson fed Hicks in the 14th minute, and Swanson then scored herself to make it 2-0 with 9:33 left in the first half.  KSC kept their deficit at two thanks to seven saves from freshman keeper Molly Diamondstein and a defensive save early from Belle Hemond.  Diamondstein also made a stop 1:09 into the second half and KSC then had two penalty corner chances thereafter to cut the deficit in half but only managed one shot from Emma Bazin that went wide.  An Endicott corner 1:14 after that attempt ended up beginning the avalanche of goals, as Swanson found Perkins on a corner play to make it 3-0 at the 36:22 mark and Hicks scored off another corner 25 seconds later.  Hicks made it two goals in 45 seconds for herself and three goals in 1:19 at 37:41.

The Gulls had a 34-10 advantage in shots – 13-3 in the fourth quarter – and 17-4 in corners (6-0 in final 15 minutes).

Diamondstein finished with eight saves in 45 minutes before Gorman made two saves in the fourth quarter.  Faith Minickene made three saves in 50:49 in the win.

The result tonight was a far cry from the nailbiters each team had in their respective conference tournaments last week, with KSC edging the University of Southern Maine 3-2 in a penalty shootout before posting a 1-0 road win over Eastern Connecticut State University on Saturday to get the Little East's automatic bid.  Endicott, meanwhile, needed two overtimes to beat Western New England University 3-2 in the Conference of New England semifinals last week and then edged Roger Williams University 2-1 in overtime in the final.

Endicott has beaten Keene State in three straight meetings after dropping eight of the first nine, scoring all 14 goals in the matchups this season.

The Gulls will advance to take on No. 9 Middlebury College – who have won seven straight national championships – at Johns Hopkins University on Saturday at 2:00 p.m.  The Panthers advanced with a 6-0 win over Westfield State University in Vermont this afternoon.  The Gulls upset then top-ranked Middlebury 2-1 in overtime on September 28, and have won 21 straight since a 4-3 home loss to seventh-ranked Babson College in their season opener.

Watson ends her career with a 514-245-11 overall record and was inducted into the Keene State College Athletics/Alumni Hall of Fame this past September and helped mold 17 All-Americans (some honored multiple times) since her first season in 1994, when Keene State was in Division II.  The Owls joined the LEC in 1997 and were in the NCAA tournament just one year later as an at-large selection – a place they would become quite familiar with under Watson.

Moving to 2026, KSC will have a massive hole to fill on the roster with the loss of Bazin, who finished with 37 goals and nine assists in 22 games this year, scoring in all but three.  The three-year Owl has posted two of the top six offensive seasons in program history in each of the last two years.