PISCATAWAY, N.J. – No. 17 Rutgers field hockey was well recognized in the annual all-conference awards, which were announced on Wednesday by the Big Ten Conference. Paulina Niklaus and Puck Winter were named First Team All-Big Ten. Martha Goodridge and Emily Nicholls were named to the All-Freshman Team. Olivia Beattie was named the winner of the Big Ten Sportsmanship Award.

Rutgers has at least two First Team All-Big Ten honorees for the sixth time in the past eight years, dating back to the 2018 season. It was the second time for both Niklaus and Winter that they were placed on the First Team All-Big Ten listing. Niklaus and Winter become the fourth and fifth Scarlet Knight to be named First Team All-Big Ten multiple times, joining Gianna Glatz, Katie Larmour and Iris Langejans.

Niklaus earns her third straight all-Big Ten recognition and is on the First Team for the second consecutive season. Niklaus is a two-time team captain for the Scarlet Knights in her third season 'On the Banks'. Playing both back and midfield this season, she is a starter in all 17 games with five goals and six assists. The Mannheim, Germany native leads the team in assists, is third in points (16) and fourth in goals. In 51 career games and starts, she has 15 goals and 13 assists for 43 points.

Winter earns her third straight all-Big Ten recognition and is on the First Team for the second time, also being placed on the First Team in 2023. A starter in all games, the back has five defensive saves this season, second in the Big Ten. For her career, she has 30 defensive saves, where she is Rutgers' all-time record holder, second in Big Ten history, and sixth in Big Ten history. A native of Deventer in the Netherlands, she has five goals and three assists this season. Over four years, she has started all 72 games, with 17 goals and four assists.

Goodridge has made an instant impact as a freshman, playing both back and midfield. A native of Marlow, England, she has started all 17 goals, scoring four goals with two assists. She was named the Big Ten Freshman of the Week on September 29 after scoring the game-winning goal in RU's 2-1 overtime victory over Ohio State.

Nicholls, a redshirt freshman from Haddon Heights, N.J., has started all 17 games as the team's goalkeeper, playing 1,006 minutes in the cage. She holds a 1.1 goals-against-average and a 78.4% save percentage, which is sixth nationally and second in the Big Ten. She has 98 saves on the year, the first Rutgers goalkeeper to record 90 saves in a season since Shevaun Hayes made 103 stops in 2014-15, the first year for the Scarlet Knights as a member of the Big Ten Conference. The Camden Catholic product is second in the league in saves and saves per game.

This is the second year of the conference doing an All-Freshman Team. Last season, Anna Cogdell was the lone RU representative on the All-Freshman Team, with RU doubling that output this season. Rutgers was one of just three teams with multiple All-Freshman Team honorees.

Beattie was recognized as the team's honoree of the Sportsmanship Award. A back from Greenisland, Northern Ireland, the junior has started all 17 games at back this season and has 50 career starts on the backline across her three years as a Scarlet Knight.

Rutgers is in action this week at the Big Ten Tournament. The Scarlet Knights are the No. 5 seed in the event hosted by Indiana University. The team plays No. 4 seed Michigan in the first quarterfinal game, an 11 a.m. contest on Thursday with a stream on B1G+. With a win, RU would advance to play top-seeded and No. 2 nationally ranked Northwestern on Friday in the Semifinals.