The U.S U-21 women’s field hockey team won the 2016 Young Women’s National Championship last week in an event that included 10 current Maryland players.
Forward Linnea Gonzales and defender Carrie Hanks are part of the U-21 team, and the other eight Terps were spread across five of the remaining seven teams.
The U-21 squad was hardly challenged during their four games, recording shutouts and scoring at least five goals in each of them. Winning wasn’t the main objective, though, as Gonzalez said the team focused on improving its performance throughout the tournament.
“Our coaches talked about adding a layer each game and trying to build off of that,” Gonzales said.
Hanks and Gonzales agreed the strategy worked.
“You could see it in our gameplay that we were applying things from our training,” Hanks said.
The team won their first two games 11-0 and finished the week with 6-0 and 5-0 victories. USA Gold, which is not affiliated with the country’s national team, finished in second place and had four Terps on the roster.
In addition to the 10 current athletes, former Terps midfielders Alyssa Parker and Kasey Tapman also took part in the event. It was a somewhat of a reunion for the players, most of whom hadn’t seen each other play since May.
“It was good to see everyone’s putting in the work in the summer,” Hanks said. “You could tell that those representing Maryland really wanted to be there and show what they could do.”
Gonzales said the Terps didn’t let up when playing each other. If anything, they played harder.
“[Maryland coach Missy Meharg] is always about being competitive and coming out on top, so we definitely played aggressive against each other,” Gonzales said. “It was competitive which I think was good.”
For now, the players returned to their homes to continue their summer workouts described in the packets the Maryland coaching staff gave them. Hanks said that the intensive weeks of practice and games for the YNWC served as quality preparation for Maryland’s preseason schedule.
Gonzalez said this national team experience also helped bring Gonzales and Hanks closer together on and off the field.
The U-21 squad will finish the 2015-16-calendar season at the Junior World Cup in November. It earned a berth to the tournament after finishing second at the Pan American Championship in April.
Last week’s YWNC was the final tune-up before the event.
“We’re all training and vying for spots on the Junior World Cup roster so we try and treat every game like we’re at the World Cup,” Hanks said. “We can’t take a game off or have lulls in our game. We know everybody needs to be representing the team well.”
