LOUISVILLE, Ky.—The Bellarmine University field hockey team dominated the visiting Mercy Mavericks 8-0 this afternoon at Owsley B. Frazier Stadium to assume the top spot in the Eastern College Athletic Conference standings.

The Knights outshot their guests 32-0 and got a hat trick from Katie Jo Hollkamp to roll to the easy victory. Hollkamp converted all three of her shots today, and has four goals in the last two games.

"We are really excited to start conference play 2-0," said Bellarmine Coach Mark Blankenbaker. "Our players were very focused with the three games in three days.  We were able to play a lot of our girls because we scored so many goals, and that was important in this heat."

The stat sheet displayed the wide use of the bench as 13 different players had shots and goals came from six different Knights.

"We worked all week on our attack, and the girls responded by scoring 15 goals in two games," Blankenbaker said, referring to yesterday's 7-1 win over Newberry.

Blankenbaker said the work of the defense and midfielders created a lot of Bellarmine's opportunities today by keeping the ball in the Bellarmine attack end.

In addition to Hollkamp, Bellarmine goals were scored by Anna O'Toole, Aimee Ilgenfritz, Kathryn Schneidtmiller, Caroline Krill, and Helena Varga. Assists were provided by Kelsey O'Bryan, Merit Harris, Ilgenfritz, Schneidtmiller, Krill and Dana Hemingway.

Bellarmine improves to 5-3 overall and moves to 2-0 in the ECAC. Mercy falls to 1-4 and 1-1 in conference.

The Knights continue their foray into league play next week as they host Limestone on Friday and ECAC newcomer Belmont Abbey on Saturday.

"We are going to work hard this week to keep the momentum for a tough weekend of conference games," Blankenbaker said.

BOX SCORE (HTM)