Jullys Souza Jr
Staff Writer
10/17/2024
Athlete Spotlight: Field Hockey’s Jenna Morse
FITCHBURG, MA—Jenna Morse, a fifth-year student at Fitchburg State University, is putting together an incredible season in the MASCAC as the starting goalkeeper for the Fitchburg State Falcons Field Hockey team. The past six weeks of play from the Field Hockey team have been remarkable. In an interview with Morse, when asked her thoughts on the season so far she was enthusiastic to answer “absolutely incredible.” Their team is now 6-1 in conference play, and fifth-year grad student Jenna Morse is now a four-time Defensive Player of the Week.
Since the Falcons’ field hockey team started the regular season a few weeks ago, Morse has played 601 minutes, and in the last 12 games, she’s only allowed 23 goals. Compared to the goalies of the other teams in the MASCAC, Morse has the lowest average of 2.16 goals allowed per game. She also has 94 saves so far, so her save-to-goal percentage is .811, the lowest and highest of the other six teams in the MASCAC Conference.
The first time Morse was awarded the Defensive Player of the Week this season was September 9th. And her most recent reception of this accolade was on October 16th. Throughout four and a half weeks, Morse had earned Defensive Player of the Week each time the results came out.
Jenna is humble and likes to see the hard work and effort she has put in paying off . She said, “I mean it’s cool, it’s nice to be acknowledged for the work I’m putting in out there, but I also know there are some really nasty defensive players out there, that I’d want them to be recognized too.” It’s quite refreshing to hear from someone who has won so many awards throughout her time on this team that she wants the wealth to be spread around.
Jenna gave some insight into her thoughts from the past four seasons compared to this one where she said “The ability to get back out on the field and have some fun has been a lot different for me. I’ve always felt a lot of pressure on the field and I don’t feel that about this season because I’m just so blessed to be back out there.” This season is a blessing to Jenna since she is a full-time police officer for Lunenburg, MA. She has been taking full-time classes, working her full-time job, and being an active athlete.
From what has been witnessed this season, there has been so much success for Jenna in goal and it has been said that part of what it has to do with having less pressure on her compared to prior years and the support she receives from her teammates and coaching staff. “I think that feeling of not having a ton of pressure on me and having such a good team in front of me… I don’t feel a lot of pressure in the backfield… because we are all saving this game”
Morse thinks that the postseason is going to be great and that the Falcons have a strong chance at going far this time around. “I don’t wanna jinx anything but I think we’re looking pretty good… especially with today’s comeback (against Framingham state)… it just showed that even when we get down we know what we can do and we can lay it all out there.” The game that she was referring to was Fitchburg’s comeback victory from down 0-2 against Framingham State on October 16th, where the falcons were able to come back with a score of 4-2 keeping their streak of conference wins at 6-0.
Overall, looking at how this season has been and gone for the Falcons and Jenna, there has been a lot of hard work put in and it shows compared to last season. In the 2023 season, the Falcons had a conference record of 3-7 and an overall record of 4-13, compared to this year it wasn’t so great. This season as of now, the conference record is 6-2 and overall they’re 8-8. The Falcons are going strong right now and given their most recent history against conference teams they should perform well when it comes to playoff time. With Jenna serving as the last line of defense, this team has a chance to compete with anyone in the MASCAC.
