The Regis College athletics department welcomes Saint Anselm College alumni Shannon Colson (softball) and Mary Nee (field hockey) as assistant coaches for the Pride starting in the 2021-22 academic year.
Colson was an outfielder at Saint Anselm College for five seasons, returning to the team in 2021 to finish her collegiate career after the 2020 campaign was halted. She started 199 of the 200 games she appeared in, compiling a .328 career batting average with 206 hits, a school-record 89 stolen bases, and 77 runs batted in. In 2018, she received Third Team All-Northeast 10 honors after batting .315 with career-high totals in triples (six), RBI (35), walks (17), and stolen bases (32), also a Saint Anselm single season record. Colson would help the Hawks advance all the way to the NCAA Division II Softball Championship Final Series.
She followed that in 2019 with a .358 batting average, walking 15 times while striking out on only three occasions, as she earned First Team All-NE10 and D2CCA First Team All-East Region recognition during a season in which Saint Anselm again reached the NCAA Division II Tournament Super Regionals. In 2021, Colson helped the Hawks win the East Regional to advance to the NCAA Division II Softball Championship as she received Second Team All-NE10 accolades by batting .309 and walking 15 times with only four strikeouts.
Nee was a four-year letterwinner at Saint Anselm College, appearing in 84 matches, including 48 starts. Her first career point was an assist at Mercy during her freshman year Sept. 18, 2016. One year later, she scored her first career goal at St. Thomas Aquinas (Sept. 17, 2017) and made her first career start at Stonehill Oct. 24, 2017. As a senior, she collected six goals and six assists for 18 total points, featuring a two-goal performance at Franklin Pierce Oct. 29, 2019.
Nee also scored the lone goal in Saint Anselm's 1-0 victory over Assumption in the semifinals of the 2019 Northeast-10 Tournament. As a team captain, she would help the Hawks win the NE-10 Championship and advance to the 2019 NCAA Division II national championship game, where she picked up an assist.
Colson received her bachelor's degree in elementary education from Saint Anselm with a minor in English speakers of other languages. She is pursuing her master's degree in special education at Regis. Nee graduated from Saint Anselm in the spring of 2020 with her bachelor's degree in psychology, plus she minored in sociology. She is pursuing her master's degree in social work at Regis.