Each week during the academic year, the NE10 honors
Athletes of the Week for all of its 24 sponsored sports while they are in season. Faces in the Crowd shines a spotlight on outstanding on-field performances that didn't earn Athlete of the Week recognition, while also highlighting academic or community efforts from student-athletes across the league.
Below are this week's
NE10 Faces in the Crowd.
Dillon Labonte
School: SNHU
Sport: Cross Country
Labonte finished 15th in the 8K UMass Dartmouth Gold Race in Dartmouth, Mass. His time of 24:56.6 was a new PR and tied for the fifth-best mark in SNHU program history. This is the second time he's earned Faces in the Crowd recognition this fall.
Elizjah Lewis
School: Pace
Sport: Football
Lewis had two career touchdowns entering last week. Now he has five. The receiver hauled in seven passes for 151 yards and three scores against Post. His 208 receiving yards are now atop the NE10 along with his three touchdown catches.
Grace Almeida
School: Saint Michael's
Sport: Volleyball
Almeida capped back-to-back nine-kill, errorless performances last week when Saint Michael's beat SUNY Plattsburgh. Almeida hit .690 over that two-match span. She hit .750 in the Plattsburgh match -- the best in the NE10 for a three-set performance this fall.
Lana Mignon De Wet
School: Adelphi
Sport: Field Hockey
De Wet exploded for 10 points on four goals and two assists against Franklin Pierce last week, putting up the best single-game performance by an offensive player in the NE10 to that point this year. De Wet's eight goals equal her total from all of last year, when she was named all-conference.
Paola Soto Burgos
School: AIC
Sport: Volleyball
The grad student eclipsed 1,000 career kills last week. She missed all of last season to injury and wasted no time breaking back into the fold for the NE10 Champions. Soto Burgos had 16 kills in her return to the court and the seven blocks in her second match. In her first competition back on the Butova Gym floor, Soto Burgos passed 1,000 kills when AIC hosted Bridgeport and Molloy last week.
This Year's Faces in the Crowd
Week 1
Anna Daggatt, Saint Michael's Volleyball
Dillon Labonte, SNHU Cross Country
Jakkai Stith, AIC Football
Jenni Huttunen, Franklin Pierce Soccer
Taylor Leckey, SCSU Field Hockley
Week 2
Alice Bender, Pace Volleyball
Annie Lorenz, Bentley Field Hockey
Isabel Hughes and Claudia Keith, SNHU Soccer
Reese Swanson, Franklin Pierce Field Hockey
Connor Dietz, AIC Football
Jay Kastantin, Assumption Football
Week 3
Dillon Labonte, SNHU Cross Country
Elizjah Lewis, Pace Football
Grace Almeida, Saint Michael's Volleyball
Lana Mignon De Wet, Adelphi Field Hockey
Paola Soto Burgos, AIC Volleyball
ABOUT THE NE10
The NE10 is an association of 10 diverse institutions serving student-athletes across 24 NCAA Division II sports. Together we build brilliant futures by embracing the journey of every student-athlete.
Each year, 4,500 of those student-athletes compete in conference championships in 24 sports, making the NE10 the largest DII conference in the country in terms of sport sponsorship. Leading the way in the classroom, on the field and within the community, the NE10 is proud of its comprehensive program and the experience it provides student-athletes.
Fans can subscribe via this link to follow NE10 NOW on FloSports this season. The partnership between the NE10 and FloSports works to provide funds back to the athletic departments of the Northeast-10 Conference in support of student-athletes while promoting the league on a national platform.