Men’s & Women’s Tewaaraton Finalists Announced

The Tewaaraton Foundation announced this year’s men’s and women’s finalists. Five of the best men’s and women’s players from around the country will be honored in Washington, D.C. on June 1. Last year’s winners were Dylan Molloy of Brown and Taylor Cummings of Maryland, who previously won the women’s award in 2014 and 2015.

The men’s finalists:

• FOGO Trevor Baptiste, Jr., Denver
• A Connor Fields, Jr., Albany
• A Matt Rambo, Sr., Maryland
• A Ben Reeves, Jr., Yale
• A Pat Spencer, Soph., Loyola

The women’s finalists:

• D Nadine Hadnagy, Sr., Maryland
• A Olivia Hompe, Sr., Princeton
• M Marie McCool, Jr., North Carolina
• A Kylie Ohlmiller, Jr., Stony Brook
• M Zoe Stukenberg, Sr., Maryland

Some notes to pass along:

• The five finalists for each gender were cut down from an original list of 25 semifinalists.
• Baptiste is the first ever FOGO to be a Tewaaraton finalist.
• Fields is Albany’s fourth finalist in the past five years, and the first to not be a Thompson. He’ll join Lyle Thompson (2013-15) and Miles Thompson (2014).
• Rambo is the second Maryland finalist in school history, joining Joe Walters (2006).
• Reeves is the only returning finalist from 2016.
• Spencer is Loyola’s third ever finalist, joining Mike Sawyer (2012) and Joe Fletcher (2014).
• Ohlmiller is the first ever Stony Brook finalist in school history.

Snubs

It’s obvious:

Sergio Salcido was arguably the best midfielder in the entire nation this year, and he didn’t get the respect he deserved. He has seven less points than he did last season and has played in three less games so far. Now the four attackmen do have more points than Salcido, but the redshirt-senior demands your attention at the midfield as a dominant feeder, along with a finisher in fellow Tewaaraton finalist Nick Mariano.

According to his Twitter favorites, it looks like he agrees that he got snubbed.

Another snub in my mind is Justin Guterding. I think the man doesn’t get the respect he deserves. He’s not flashy in any way, but he gets the job done and then some. He’s tied for second in the nation with 82 points, along with Spencer and Princeton freshman Michael Sowers, tied for sixth in the nation with 44 goals, and fifth in the nation with 38 assists. Fields is the only finalist to be in the top ten in all three scoring categories.

The only other snub I could think of is the aforementioned Sowers on Princeton. The Tigers struggled at the end of the season, capped off with a loss to Brown in the Ivy League semifinals last week. As a freshman, he’s tied for second in the nation with 82 points as I just mentioned above, with an even 41 goals (tied for 10th in the nation) and 41 assists (fourth in the nation). He made guys such as seniors Gavin McBride and Zach Currier better. Sowers has some more work to do with making the Tigers great again after a 9-6 record this season. He will probably be the top guy on offense next season with players such as junior attackman Riley Thompson and junior midfielder Austin Sims coming back.

My Pick

I think Fields is currently the front-runner with 108 points, which is 26 more than second place, but I really think it will depend on how Albany does in the postseason. It will definitely bring up the debate of whether the award should only depend on the regular season or also include the postseason, which will surely be hot on Twitter. If my tournament bracket is true (Maryland wins), I like Rambo as my favorite. Not only has he made the Terps a lot better, he’s personally grown as an all-around attackman and he will be the main reason why the title curse was reversed.

Do you like the finalists? Were there snubs in your eyes? Who do you think will win the Tewaaraton? Give us your thoughts in the comments below!