Rankings

The past season in 2010 the NCAA ranked the following teams top 10:
1 - Maryland
2 - North Carolina
3 - Virgina
4 - Connenecuit
5 - Syracuse
6 - Ohio State
7 - Princeton
8 - Michigan
9 - Penn State
10 - Old Dominion

With the spring seasons just ending and Summer months up ahead all the coaches are hoping their athletes continue to train so they can be the best of the best. Most all Division I programs report back to school for pre-season starting August 10th. The teams will train and have pre-season games before their regular season starts. It is hard to tell which team is going to be the most powerful or even estimate a top 10 list for the 2011 season. The reason for this is no coach knows how their new freshman will mesh to the team as well as how much playing time and impact they will have. Pre-season is always an exciting time to see what you have.

How to get recruited today

The best way to get recruited for Division I field hockey today are attending tournaments. College coaches rarely go to high school games and follow high schools anymore. Today they go to tournament and recruit from the club teams. The popular tournaments that college coaches go to are college connections in PA, National Indoor Tournament in VA and the most popular is during Thanksgiving week is in Arizona called National Hockey Festival. This tournament has teams from all over the world come to compete. The majority of teams are from the U.S. but it has the best of the best teams. You can only participate if your team qualifies. This tournament is where all the college coaches go. They recruit and at the end of the tournament they will talk to you one on one about going to their school. Field Hockey recruits a little differently then other sports, but if you participate in these tournaments you are very likely to be getting noticed by a college coach.

Should the NCAA ban foreign players, who want to play in the US Division I programs?Mtdo

Certain Division I teams have more money then others. The teams that have more money usually tend to recruit the best of the best players. These great players are often from other countries. This is because players from other countries are known to be better and more skilled then players from the United States. Is this fair to schools that can't afford to bring in foreigners? Is it fair for American's who might get there spot taken away by a foreigner? These questions have been controversial in field hockey and in their programs. The schools that have more money will do whatever it takes to win. The schools that don't have enough money are the ones who think this is an unfair advantage. In my opninion, it is an unfair advantage. It should only be okay if all team have enough money to recruit foreigners.

Colleges don't offer Men's field hockey

Field Hockey is the world's third most popular sport. Women and men play field hockey all over the world. Men started this sport and women went along and followed them. In the U.S. field hockey is considered a female sport. There are no high schools or colleges that offer field hockey for men. Our country thinks of field hockey as a sport where you wear a skirt. However, for adult men there are leagues you can participate in during the summer. I know this because I played against a male team before. Our country does have a U.S. National Men's Field Hockey team, but that is it. Furthermore, why don't we offer it to boys and men when they younger? To me, this doesn't make sense. Our country should have a mens field hockey team at the college level. In every other country but ours it is normal for men to play field hockey.

Are Spring Tournaments a real way to evaluate a team?

This past weekend was the first weekend Spring Tournaments started. All teams participated in different tournaments around the country. However, with the Seniors not being a part of it and the incoming freshman not at school yet, are spring tournaments a real way to evaluate how well a team is performing? 

The incoming freshman have not arrived, most tournaments are only 7 v 7 because they don't have eleven healthy players ready to play. Spring time is when if a player is injured they take the time off to rest before the season begins in the fall. In my opinion, spring tournaments are not a good way to evaluate a team. They are meaningless and you do not have your full team to see how well you can perform.

rule, does it help or hurt the sport?

The new rule that took affect in August 2010 has had a huge effect on the field hockey game. The new rule is that if the officials call a free hit instead of passing the ball the girl can move five yards and take it herself. Some disadvantages to this is that the team defending this will not get in back in time. However, the advantages is that the game moves a lot faster. The games is more exciting and you don't have to wait to get the ball, you can just go. In my opinion, the advantages out weight the disadvantages

Top D3 schools moving up to D1

The College of New Jersey is a Division I program. Each year they make it to the NCAA DIII tournament. Some years they win it, some years they come up close. However, this program is extremely strong. They play some DI schools during pre-season and put up a fight and even beat them. TCNJ should get moved up to DI. They have the facilities, astro turf field and the level of competition just like DI programs have. There are teams that are DI for example, Siena, St. Francis and Robert Morris who each year have a loosing record. This past season Monmouth University beat Siena 10 - 0. Siena does not put up a good competition and should move down to DIII, while TCNJ takes Siena's spot for DI.

Patriot League

Within the Patriot League American University has been the number team for years now. This team is lead by Olympic Coach, Steve Jennings. These players are recruited all over the world not just in the United States. Lehigh, Lafayette, Holy Cross, Bucknell and Colgate are the teams in the Patriot League. Unfortunately these five teams have never had a chance to move on because American is powerhouse in the patriot league conference. Furthermore, American beats the other Patriot teams by a lot of goals. In my opinion, American University should move out of the Patriot League and onto a stronger conference. They prove to be a strong team when they make it far in the NCAA tournament each year.

Monmouth's Goalie to play in Ireland

Melissa Katz from Monmouth University is now continuing her field hockey career in Ireland. Katz was a standout for the Monmouth University Hawks. She had an amazing senior year. With the help of her, the Hawks were ranked #20 in the nation at one point. She had tremendous saving ability and is extremely talented. Katz left this past month to play a tournament in Ireland. She is now staying there and playing with the Ireland team. She is there goalie and is getting paid to continue her professional career in another country. Katz hard work, dedication and work ethic makes her such a great contribution to the Ireland team.

Best Coach in NEC

In the Northeast conference I would have to say Rider's head coach Lori Hussong would have to be the best. However, this past season Monmouth University's Head Coach Carli Figlio won coach of the year for the Northeast Conference. My reasoning is ever since Lori Hussong took the head coaching job at Rider she has always had winning records and has always made it to the NEC tournament. This past season they won the NEC conference title and were the #1 seed for regular season game play. Coach Figlio took over the Hawks four years ago and she has done a great job building the program. However, I still say Lori  Hussong has been the best coach for the NEC for the past 8 years and continues to have better teams each year.

Which conference is the strogest?

In Field Hockey the conferences are all pretty much equal except there are a few exceptions.  The patriot league is a weak conference however, American University is the strongest team by far and makes it far in the NCAA tournament each year. The Northeast Conference and the North Pacific Conference is the weakest for Division I field hockey. All the other conferences have had a team move on in the NCAA tournament each year. The strongest conference for field hockey would have to be the Atlantic Coast Conference. University of Maryland College Park has won national champions year in and year out. North Carolina is usually always there rival. There is not one team in the conference that is weak. Duke, Maryland, North Carolina, Virginia, and Wake Forest are extremely tough teams to beat.

Field Hockey Tricks

This video is very entertaining to watch. It shows the Men's national teams and the tricks they can do. I have always wondered why the women aren't taught some of these certain tricks. Along with this College and National rules are different and some of these tricks are forbidden in college field hockey

Spring Seasons

Now that the Spring seasons are underway it should be interesting to see how all 77 team compete this off-season. The northeast has had numerous snow storms, which will effect the training. All these northeast schools will need someone to plow their fields in order to start practicing. Luckily for down south and california they do not need to worry about this and will most likely have an edge over many teams. Top teams Maryland and Princeton University will both experience different traing as in they are in different climates

Rider University's Virginia Egusquiza

Head Coach Lori Hussong recruited Virgina four years ago, this player

Virginia Egusquiza

has won Northeast Conference player of the year for the past two seasons. Sophomore year and currently her Junior she received this award. She still has one more season left with the Broncos. This past season Lori Hussong recruited Virgina's cousin to come play for the Broncos. This freshman received Rookie of the year award for the Northeast conference. These two girls together make the Rider University team very dangerous. It will be interesting to see how the off season goes as well as there upcoming season in Fall 2011.

New Head Coach - Delaware

Rolf Van de Kerkof

University of Delaware's Field Hockey Head Coach Carol Miller announced her retirement after this past season. The new coach that is now replacing her is Coach Rolf van de Kerkof he was previously the Head Coach for Michigan State University. A former High School field hockey teammate of mine, Tory Sharpless plays for the University of Delaware. She told me that she is extremely excited about this new coach. Old coach Carol Miller would play girls in one game then the very next game sit them out for no reason. The changes of coaches for the Delaware field hockey team is going to put the team back on track with hopefully a winning record. This Coach has a great deal of experience. He brought Michigan State to the NCAA final four and lost to Virgina. My old teammate Tory Sharpless is very excited to have him as a coach and see what he can bring to Delaware.

Monmouth Field Hockey

The Monmouth University Field Hockey team had a tough loss in the NEC Championship game to Rider University. The team had its best team it had in years. This was the first year that Monmouth gained votes to be a top 20 team in the country. Next year this team looks extremely bright too. There were two freshman starters that contributed a lot. I think Monmouth is going to surprise many other top Division I schools next year. I think they also have an extremely high chance of going to the NCAA tournament for the first time.