The Maryland field hockey coaching staff recently sat down with umterps.com to talk about what the best fans in the country can expect to see from the 2015 Terrapins.
Read what head coach Missy Meharg, associate head coach Dina Rizzo and assistant coach/technical director Joppe de Vries had to say about the upcoming season.
Now that we’ve entered preseason, what can fans expect to see from the 2015 Maryland field hockey team?
MM: The senior leadership on the team and the experience of being in a new conference for a year, coupled with unbelievable new talent, makes this team really exciting. Since January, our style of play has been built on fast restarts, 360 vision, really angular hockey, which makes it really entertaining for the fans to watch and the players to play. With the seniors, this group of women has provided so much consistent, positive, independent, creative leadership since January. We couldn’t be more excited about the opportunity to play a really fast-paced game.
DR: What excites me is the variety of styles of personnel, coupled with the experience of some of our upper classmen as well as some new faces. Coming off of last year leading the nation in scoring, that’s going to be a goal for us to stay on top of.
JD: What excites me is definitely the group that is coming in, but also the group that has been here for a long time. It will be fun to see them work together and become one unit. I would say I would like to see us be the best penalty corner unit in the country, both offensively and defensively.
What can we expect to see from your attack unit this year?
DR: A really exciting attacker coming back this year for us is Welma Luus. She’s a hardworking, smart, talented, skillful attacker that can find the net. She’s got some of the best reaction time with her tennis ability as well. Emma Rissinger just has sheer will and desire to put herself on the line to be the best team player, coupled with hard work as one of the hardest workers on the team.
Linnea Gonzales is one of the most talented hockey players to come from the state of Maryland ever and is on the U.S. Under-21 Team. Her skill, her creativeness and her fluidity and style is going to be really fun for fans to watch.
MM: Faye Curran is a graduate student and comes from the University of Birmingham. She comes from a premier league in England. She comes to us with a tremendous amount of experience, both as a scoring forward and as a side back and has worked in set pieces. She’s a very mature player and will be used in a variety of roles for us. Redshirt freshman Layne Litsinger is small in stature, but is feisty and works so hard. She is so eager to develop her skills even more. I think Julie Duncan is as fast as any player with or without the ball. We’re just going to make sure she knows exactly where that goal cage is. If you can get her the ball in the right space and don’t have to slow her down, that’s the style we want.
What does your midfield bring to the table and how can they help this year’s team succeed?
MM: What will lend to the team attack being really dynamic is how the midfield brings the ball into the attacking region. When you look at Anna Dessoye, Alyssa Parker, Lein Holsboer and Olivia Reiter, it’s a really strong group.
We’ve been really eager in the last year and a half to have the girls monitored with their general fitness. The women that represent the midfield – Emma, Anna, Alyssa, Lein, Floor Paanakker, Maddy Ulery – this group of seven women are runners. They are seriously fit. They are engine rooms. They can run with the pack. A combination of those players at any time in four spots is going to lend to really quick, zonal, active defense and a really quick counterattack. We use the term IPR, which is instant positive response. To play that style of hockey or any team game, you’ve got to be fit. I know our physiologist, Dr. Hagberg, would agree this is the most fit and dynamic midfield we’ve seen in some time.
You have an experienced defense this year – what will we see from that group?
JD: We have a very talented group when you look at Carrie Hanks, a national team player, Sarah Sprink, with a lot of experience, plus our side backs Rachel Frusher and Kasey Tapman, one of the best interceptors in the country. We want to be a simple, but communicative backfield. They will be in constant communication of who takes space, who takes players to cover and if that goes well, then we are in good shape.
MM: You look at some of the players that have been here for quite some time. Sarah’s in her fourth year here and Kasey has had a tremendous spring season. She’s an extraordinary young woman from Pocomoke. Her work rate is unmatched and her leadership is such. That backfield creates a lot of consistency and maturity. This spring, Marissa Cutry, Rachel Frusher and Olivia Reiter were outstanding. Delaney Leathers has been all over for us, but she was pretty dominant in the backfield in the spring, so she’ll be there a lot this year. Carrie Hanks is pretty much a starter on the U.S. Under-21 Team and has played in the deep defense, so she’ll move from the midfield to the backfield region. We’re very confident in our personnel, our technical skills and in our leadership,
You have a fifth-year senior goalkeeper in Jill Genovese, but then three younger goalkeepers. What can you tell us about them?
JD: After Jill Genovese, we have a fairly new group of goalies. It’s going to be exciting to get them all at the same speed level and help them become Division I goalkeepers. They’ve all come in with great attitudes and it will be fun to see them develop.
MM: Watching Joppe’s development with Jill Genovese and Melissa Flowe, they both play very well. We feel like we’re in a good situation. Adding Sarah Holliday to that mix gives us three very different goalies, three very different ages, three very different styles and that’s exciting as we build our defense.
We’re welcoming a very diverse group of newcomers from all different ages and backgrounds. What are they bringing to Maryland field hockey?
MM: The seven new players are so completely different from each other, it’s very exciting. Just true freshmen, Sarah Holliday as the top goalkeeper in Maryland and Linnea Gonzales is such an exciting player. Of course, Julie Duncan, who was classmates with Marissa Cutry, is fast as ever. Olivia Reiter graduated from high school early in January and came here three days later. We have so much respect for her and she is quite an athlete mentally and is physically so tough. She will bring a tremendous amount of experience from already being with the team. Sarah Bates is a Maryland goalkeeper and is happy to be home. She’s had some injuries and will be rehabilitating the entire fall to be ready for the spring. She’s a great addition.
Floor Paanakker is a transfer student from the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands. She actually has completed an undergraduate degree in law, but she will get a second degree. Faye Curran intends to be a female sports broadcaster. She chose the University of Maryland and the Philip Merrill School of Journalism. She’s very intelligent and she’s a pretty outrageous field hockey player. It’s exciting to bring them both here.
You always try to play a tough schedule to prepare your teams for November. How will this year’s schedule do that again?
MM: I think the opening couple of weekends are so important. They just set the pace. Temple has come to be a very formidable program. It’ll be a challenge to compete with a former Maryland coach in Marybeth Freeman and Katie Gerzabek is her assistant. We’re just starting the Big Ten/ACC Cup in Lancaster, Pa. on Labor Day weekend. It’s always a great opportunity to play Princeton, Old Dominion, American, Albany and more traditional powers. The Big Ten has fantastic hockey. I think the league has some really strong teams and we’re hoping to get all nine teams as strong as they can be in the next few years. The Big Ten is on the move and that’s an exciting place to be.
What is this year’s senior class of Anna Dessoye, Jill Genovese, Shari Jones, Welma Luus, Alyssa Parker, Sarah Sprink and Kasey Tapman is a really interesting group. What can you tell us about them this season?
MM: They’re a group that came in when the freshmen the year prior had won an NCAA championship and that’s always a feisty group. It’s a group that can want it so badly, it can be hard. I think this group had that experience. They’re very good friends. They are ruthless competitors, they are very diverse and they represent every facet of what true athleticism is all about. I mean from culture, to speed, to fitness, to resiliency. I’m confident this group of seven seniors has been through enough experiences of winning, crying, losing, smiling, laughing, that they’re going to put this team on their backs to be in the best position to win and hopefully be in a position to leave with a national championship.
DR: This group of seniors respects each other so much. They understand each other’s differences and strengths and weaknesses and that’s where the respect comes in. They know what they’re going to get from each other. They handle it so well and they are in a place with each other where they have experience and they know it’s time to put it all together. This is it for them and they know that. I think it could be a special, fun year for them if they keep that in perspective.
MM: When you say ‘it,’ it can mean a practice day, or it can mean holding the trophy over your head. With this group, I’m confident because of that trust they have with each other and their love for the University of Maryland, they get that ‘it’ is each and every day. When that day to be in the position to hold that trophy is there, so be it.
JD: It’s a great group. I like that they are sometimes very mature and that sometimes they are just 20 years old in college. That balance is very important. They are all fantastic field hockey players and they are all able to lead and I’m very much looking forward to that.
The Terrapins will host James Madison in an exhibition on Sunday, Aug. 23 at 1 p.m. All fans are welcome to attend. Maryland officially opens the 2015 season on Friday, Aug. 28 at Temple, then will host Saint Joseph’s on Sunday, Aug. 30 at 2 p.m. at the Field Hockey & Lacrosse Complex. Admission and parking are free.
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