Moon Township, Pa. - The Robert Morris University women's lacrosse team had two members of its freshman class honored by the Northeast Conference on Thursday evening.  Midfielders Brittany Byerly and Jessica Karwacki were both named to the All-NEC Rookie Team while Byerly was also placed on the All-NEC First Team.

Brittany Byerly (Wexford, Pa. / Pine-Richland) is the first freshman in program history to be named to the All-NEC First Team.  Playing in every game for the Colonials in her first season, Byerly would lead the team in almost every category.

From a scoring perspective, her 32 goals and 44 points were both a team-high while her 12 assists were tied for the most on the squad.  She would also convert on 15 free-position attempts which was also a team high.  Byerly would also shoot the ball, hew 74 shot attempts were tied for the most on the team and she led Robert Morris with 56 shots-on-goal.  While on defense, Byerly would lead RMU with 31 ground balls and 14 caused turnovers.

Jessica Karwacki (Sparks, Md. / Hereford) joins Byerly on the All-NEC Rookie Team as the Colonials have had a member on the team in each of the four seasons that the NEC has announced the honor.  In her first season with RMU, Karwacki dominated on the draw as she won a single-season NCAA record 152 draw controls.

Averaging 9.50 draw controls per game, the next closest student-athlete to Karwacki is averaging almost three fewer draw controls per game.  In nine of the 16 games this season, Karwacki would win at least ten draw controls including a program-record 25 draw controls against Quinnipiac on April 19.

Losing just two seniors, the Colonials will return underclassmen that represented over 77 percent of the scoring for Robert Morris including both Byerly and Karwacki who will look to improve on first-year performances.