Coming into the 2007 NCAA women's field hockey season, the Atlantic Coast Conference has a stranglehold on the nation's finest talent. The National Field Hockey Coaches Association's preseason top ten teams could have been mistaken for the ACC rankings, as the top four teams, and six of the top nine teams, were from the ACC.
Included on that list were the Virginia Cavaliers, who are determined to prove that the top-ten ranking is not just based on last year's success but rather their potential.
"I think it's really exciting to be on the brink of a team that's heading upwards," first-year forward Laura Nelson said. "Every day I really feel this sense that there's this purpose, and that we're really working towards something."
Although many dynamics go into the success of any given team on any given day, the ability of a coaching staff to scout and recruit players cannot be short-changed. Virginia is currently led by the 2006 National Coach of the Year, Michele Madison, who is in her second year at Virginia after a long tenure at Michigan State. Madison came to Charlottesville last season and brought a world-class team of assistant coaches from her time at MSU.
Her presence on and off the field drew much of Virginia's incoming class to Charlottesville.
Freshman forward Kaitlyn Hiltz was convinced that Virginia was the place for her after the coaching change. Aside from the newfound excitement on the team and anticipation of the future success of the program, Hiltz was drawn to Virginia by the coaching style of Madison.
"As opposed to being a coach looking down on a player, she more looks at it as [if] it's the players' team," Hiltz said.
Assistant coaches Alex Kyser and Christina Kirkaldy played for Madison at Michigan State, and Kirkaldy was part of the Spartan team that reached a No. 1 national ranking. Having played under Madison at Michigan State, they lend credibility, in the eyes of recruits, to a program whose success is relatively unproven.
"After having conversations with them on the phone and coming down and visiting them and meeting with them, I really realized that if I wanted to play a sport in college it would be for coaches like them," Nelson said.
The heart of the up-and-coming Cavalier squad will be this year's freshman class, which is Madison's first recruiting class here at that University. The fact that these eight incoming players chose Virginia, a fresh face among the elite of collegiate field hockey, over schools such as Duke, Boston College and Penn State, speaks to the vision of the future Madison projects for Virginia field hockey.
"When I found out about the coaching change, I [thought], 'Whoa, this definitely is it,'" first-year forward Taylor Swezey said. "The coaching staff here is definitely for me the best coaching staff in the ACC by far."
Beyond the mutual wish to play under Madison's coaching staff, the players said the allure of Grounds factored into their decision to come to Virginia.
"I was looking at mostly schools in New England, and when I came down and visited U.Va. in the spring, I just absolutely fell in love with the school," Nelson said.
Hiltz, Swezey and Nelson join the Cavaliers on attack. Boyd Vicars, Jamie Mulhare, Shelley Edmonds and Haley Carpenter will lend their skills to the mid- and backfields, and Devon Burnley will play behind third-year Amy Desjadon in goal.
"I felt like my recruiting class could come in here and make an immediate impact," Hiltz said. "And that's what the coaches wanted for us ... [It felt] like we were going to be a part of something"
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