The United States Women’s Field Hockey U-21 team recently returned to America from Ireland wearing bronze medals.
After a tough opener against The Netherlands, the 2021 FIH Hockey Women’s Junior World Cup champions, team USA battled in four more games ultimately earning a final win versus Ireland, the host nation of the Uniphar 5-Nations Tournament.
Palmyra graduate and current Northwestern University student-athlete, Lauren Wadas, captained the travel team. She also added one goal to USA’s 12 scored.
Here is the breakdown of each game and reaction from head coach Tracey Paul, according to USA Field Hockey:
Game 1: USA 2, Netherlands 4. Scoring for USA: Lauren Wadas (Annville, Pa.) and Caroline Ramsey (Morristown, N.J.)
“This was a solid opening performance from an inexperienced team who are trusting in the process,” head coach Tracey Paul told USA Field Hockey. “They created many scoring opportunities throughout the game and displayed strong team defense.”
Game 2: USA 2, Ukraine, 0. Scoring for USA: Ryleigh Heck (Berlin, N.J.) and Katie Dixon (Cary, N.C.)
“We are appreciative to Hockey Ireland for making it possible for the Ukraine U-21 team to participate in this tournament,” Paul said. “Ukraine posed us some new questions to answer and the team found solutions to these in the second half and played some very nice build up play. We are very pleased with the continued growth the team is making.”
GAME 3: USA 1, India 4. Scoring for USA: Hannah Miller (Malvern, Pa.)
“Today’s score is by no means a reflection of the game,” Paul said. “I am proud of how the team competed and executed the game plan in first three quarters. The valuable lesson to extract is that in order to beat the best internationally you have to be able to sustain the pace of play for the entire game.”
GAME 4: USA 3, Ireland 2. Scoring for USA: Hannah Miller, 2 (Malvern, Pa.) and Caroline Ramsey (Morristown, N.J.)
“We asked the team to demonstrate learnings from our game against India and challenged them with tactical changes to execute today,” Paul said. “I am pleased at the way they applied themselves to the challenges we set them and the result was an outcome of that.”
GAME 5: 3RD/4TH: USA 4, Ireland 0. Scoring for USA: Caroline Ramsey (Morristown, N.J.), Olivia Bent-Cole (Philadelphia, Pa.), Abigail Tamer (Whitmore Lake, Mich.), and Ryleigh Heck (Berlin, N.J.)
“Today’s result is a reflection of the effort the team put in to improving throughout the tournament,” Paul said. “We created a lot of turnovers from good pressing and worked together to play some very good team hockey.”
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