Nov. 1, 2007

SpiderTV PREVIEW

PHILADELPHIA, Pa. - The five-time defending Atlantic 10 Champion Richmond field hockey team plays Massachusetts in the semifinals of the 2007 Atlantic 10 Tournament at Saint Joseph's University on Friday at 2 p.m.

The Spiders have won 47 of their last 49 games against Atlantic 10 competition dating back to the start of the 2002 season and are two victories away from their sixth-straight Atlantic 10 title.

Richmond finished conference play with a 5-2 record this season and one of those losses was a 1-0 setback at UMass on Oct. 21. The Minutewomen scored the game's lone goal on a penalty stroke.

"UMass is going be an incredibly tough opponent, but I think we're prepared," Richmond head coach Gina Lucido said.

Richmond enters the tournament as the third seed, the first time the Spiders have not been the top seed since the 2001 A-10 Tournament. Junior Alex Malatesta, who was a starter on Richmond's last two A-10 Championship teams, does not think the change of seeding matters.

"I think we're all confident, we worked really hard, we earned the spot we got and it's not going to bring us down," Malatesta said. "We're going to go in there as confident as we were last year."

Last year the Spiders defeated Temple in the semifinals and downed Saint Joseph's in the finals. Those two teams meet in the first semifinal on Friday at 11 a.m. Richmond topped Temple 2-1 on Oct. 5 and defeated Saint Joseph's 3-2 on Oct. 7.

Richmond is 10-1 in Atlantic 10 Tournament games, having won 10-straight conference tournament games. The Spiders only conference tournament loss came in double overtime to UMass on Nov. 3, 2001.

Seniors Erin Arthur and Tara Kelly are looking to become the third-straight class of Spider field hockey seniors to win four Atlantic 10 titles in four years at Richmond.

Follow the semifinal action live here at RichmondSpiders.com on Gametracker and SpiderTV and check back for postgame video highlights, interviews and photos.