In her spare time, one of the things University of Maine field hockey senior wing Tara Bedard likes to do is shop.

Bedard and her Black Bear teammates will be shopping for goals and a pair of wins this weekend at the America East Championships at Northeastern University’s Sweeney Field in Boston.

Third seed Maine, 14-3 overall and 3-2 in the conference, will face No. 2 New Hampshire, 12-7 and 4-1 respectively, in Friday’s 3:30 p.m. semifinal.

Top seed and defending champ Northeastern, 15-4 and 4-1, will open the tourney against No. 4 Vermont, 7-12 and 2-3, in the 1 p.m. opener.

The winners will vie for the title and an automatic berth in the 16-team NCAA Tournament on Sunday at 2.

Skowhegan’s Bedard leads the conference in points per game (1.94) and assists (11). She has 11 goals to go with her 11 assists in 17 games.

UNH’s Marcie Boyer (14-8-36) is the only player who has more points.

“I expect her to be named an all-conference player,” said Northeastern coach Cheryl Murtagh. “She has great speed and good skills. She also has a long reach which is good for creating scoring opportunities and for tackling. She’s hard to stop.”

Bedard, in fact, was named first-team All-America East on Thursday along with teammates midfielder Jen Johnstone and goalie Jaye Lance. Maine’s Terry Kix was the Coach of the Year and three more Maine players were also honored as Karly Bundy and Kim Leo were second-team picks and Meagan Connolly was an all-rookie team selection.

Kix said Bedard has improved every year but has really elevated her game this season.

“She is playing with so much confidence,” said Kix. “She has definitely been our go-to player. When she has the ball, anything is possible. She creates so much attack for us.

“Where she has improved the most is her ability to beat defenders one-on-one at full speed. She has always possessed great speed and, this past year, she was able to maintain that speed with the ball. She has refined her ball control skills. There hasn’t been an opponent this year who has been able to defend her with just one player,” added Kix.

Bedard said by spending her first summer in Orono this past summer, “I practiced a lot on the skills my coaches have taught me. I would keep the ball on my stick and do quick movements. Before, I was more of a straight-ahead player. But I worked on pulling the ball and keeping it on my stick. I’ve got more confidence. I’ve improved more from last year to this year [than in any previous year].”

“She’s one of the best players in the conference, if not nationally,” said Maine goalie Colbey Smith.

Bedard is a late bloomer.

She didn’t start playing field hockey until eighth grade.

“I had played soccer until then. But the high school girls soccer team was awful and I wanted to play on a winning team. And all my friends played field hockey,” said Bedard who led the Indians to two state Class A championships thanks to her school career record-setting 82 goals and 45 assists.

She credited Skowhegan coach Paula Doughty with playing an integral role in her development.

“She taught me so much,” said Bedard, who selected Maine over Syracuse, Iowa, Boston University and New Hampshire.

“I had wanted to go out of Maine but I visited Syracuse and I didn’t really like it. I liked the atmosphere at Maine more, I felt more at home. I wasn’t used to going away from home and I liked the coaches here,” said Bedard.

She had four goals and an assist as a freshman; 5 & 3 as a sophomore and 6 & 1 a year ago.

The 21-year-old child development major, who will attend fashion design school in Boston next year, said she has never regretted her decision to attend Maine.

“I’m definitely happy. I never thought we’d have a season where we’d lose only three games,” said Bedard, who is anxious to play a UNH team that prevented the Bears from hosting the tourney by beating them 2-1 in Orono last Saturday.

“We dominated that whole game. We want to show them they were lucky to have beaten us,” said Bedard.