GETTYSBURG, Pa. – It hasn't been easy to be the defending national champion in NCAA Division III, but the Gettysburg College women's lacrosse team is prepared to make a stand and defend its first national crown this spring.

Unlike Division I where Northwestern University has won six of the last seven titles and Division II where Adelphi University has taken four straight, Division III women's lacrosse has been a bit more indefinite. A different champion has reigned every year since The College of New Jersey won back-to-back championships in 2005 and 2006.

Gettysburg, which captured the school's first NCAA team title of any kind last spring, will be put to the test early and often by the best the division has to offer. Ranked No. 1 in the Intercollegiate Women's Lacrosse Coaches Association Preseason Poll, the Bullets will face seven other teams also ranked in the top 20 this spring.

“It is anybody's race to win,” stated Head Coach Carol Cantele '83, tabbed IWLCA Coach of the Year for the second time last spring. “That is what makes it so exciting. Everyone has an opportunity each year which is what keeps all the teams working so hard.”

Cantele and her staff watched a relatively young group of players take the nation by surprise last spring. Despite a roster filled with mostly freshmen and sophomores, Gettysburg won 19 games, including a 16-5 dismantling of Bowdoin College in the national championship.

Plenty of pomp and circumstance has followed Gettysburg since the final game. The team was honored by several national lacrosse organizations, including being named Inside Lacrosse's Team of the Year. Gettysburg's Borough Council gave the team a whole day in November and the College Board of Trustees issued an official proclamation honoring the team. Those are but a few of the highlights centered on and around the team from the past year.

However, both Cantele, who enters her 20th season at Gettysburg nine wins shy of becoming the sixth women's lacrosse coach (all divisions) with 300 career wins, and the Bullets have already moved on and are looking past the hype to the job at hand.

“Really I am not paying attention to that and neither is the team,” said Cantele. “We have to prove ourselves at each practice every day and that is our focus at the moment…that information is yesterday's news.”

“2011 will hold a special place in the hearts of our players and our staff forever,” she continued. “It was a season filled with nothing but great moments and achievements and it was a year where the players fulfilled all of their dreams and goals. What an incredible feeling that we will use to fuel us for this season.”

Gettysburg enters 2012 with an experienced core of players ready to get down to business. Fifteen letterwinners return for Cantele, including all but two that started in the national title game against Bowdoin.

Offensively, Gettysburg will put seven of its top eight scorers from a year ago back on the field. At the top of that list is returning All-American Hannah Church. Church was tabbed with second-team national accolades after pouring in 86 goals and 99 points. At no time was she better than in the NCAA Tournament where she was named Most Outstanding Player after smashing playoff records for both goals (26) and points (29).

“Hannah possesses a great quality of staying cool under pressure,” noted Cantele. “She is difficult to stop once she has the ball in her stick and she knows how to work to get open when she is marked tight. She will be ready for this challenge.”

Church is far from alone on the front line. Joining the senior tri-captain are a number of proven scorers in junior Lindsey Robinson, and sophomores Kelsey Markiewicz, Loren Pruitt, Katie Blumenthal, and Bailey Beardsley.

Robinson ranked second to Church in scoring with 74 points, including a team-best 34 assists. She was named to the All-Metro Region and All-Centennial Conference second teams. Markiewicz and Pruitt each posted 38 goals and were each named to the All-Rookie Team by Womenslacrosse.com, while Blumenthal and Beardsley were among the team's most accurate shooters in combining for 37 scores.

Markiewicz will be part of a versatile collection of players coming out of the midfield for the Bullets. She will be joined by juniors Hayward Sawers and Lindsay Menton and sophomore Kelly Spieker. The two-way players possess the ability to score while providing a solid front to the defensive unit. Sawers, Menton, and Spieker combined for 43 points out of the midfield and each player notched at least a dozen caused turnovers a year ago.

Defensively, Gettysburg enters the season without IWLCA Defender of the Year Becky Lutz '11. In her final campaign, the two-time All-American and 2011 Centennial Conference Player of the Year set a school record for caused turnovers and served as a vocal leader for the squad.

Making up for the loss of Lutz won't be easy, but Cantele has plenty of leadership on the defensive side of the field. Senior captains Maddie Coleman and Lexi Kelly will anchor the back line.

Coleman turned in a banner year in her first as starting goalie, finishing fourth in the nation in save percentage (.534) and earning second-team all-region accolades. In the final three games of the NCAA Tournament, Coleman recorded 28 saves in taking down the fifth, fourth, and 11th-ranked teams in the country. Also a team captain last season, Kelly finished second to Lutz in caused turnovers with 22 and captured all-conference honors.

Bolstering the defensive unit will be juniors Mairead McGuirk, Alex Casey, and Kat Nestor and sophomore Paige McKenna. Coleman will be backed up by junior Ally Duggan. Duggan is a three-year letterwinner for the Bullets' field hockey team and will be competing for the first time for the lacrosse squad.

“We are excited about the variety of players that we have to use which will change depending upon our opponent's style of play,” said Cantele.

Last spring, the first-year class made a big impact thanks to the likes of Markiewicz and Pruitt. Cantele has added a talented class composed of 14 freshmen that has the potential to do so again.

“The first years are all looking good thus far and are mixing it up fairly well with the upperclassmen,” said Cantele. “They have been charged with playing hard and not settling for a back-up role. All positions are open and they remain so every day.”

If there was any regret from the 2011 season, it had to be the fact Gettysburg was denied the Centennial Conference crown. Franklin & Marshall College won the title for the fifth consecutive season, edging the Bullets by one goal during both the regular season and the finals of the conference tournament. Gettysburg was selected as the preseason favorite to take the league title this spring.

While it's easy to look ahead and picture Gettysburg and Franklin & Marshall in the conference finals once again, or to put the Bullets in the national semifinals hosted by Montclair State College in late May, the team refuses to do so. In 2011, it took its miraculous run one game at a time, and Cantele has her team focused on that very same ideal.

“We should expect every opponent to bring their best every time they step on the field, as we expect that of ourselves,” said the coach. “The game that you are playing at that moment is the only game that should matter.”

“It's going to take hard work, performing consistently every game, staying in the moment, playing as a unit and playing for each other - not to mention a little bit of good luck - for us to make it back to the final four.”

After competing in a pair of scrimmages to open the year, including facing the Wales National Team at Clark Field on Feb. 16, Gettysburg will officially begin its season at No. 17 University of Mary Washington on Thursday, Feb. 23, at 4 p.m.

The team makes a swing south to face Stevenson University and No. 12 Stevens Institute of Technology in Orlando, Fla., on March 12 and 14, respectively. Arguably the team's biggest non-conference bout will take place at second-ranked TCNJ on March 30. Its annual showdown with No. 5 Franklin & Marshall is slated for April 18.