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[quote=Anonymous]In this area for private schools, St. Stephens St. Agnes (SSSAS) has dominated for years -- in large part because of the major crossover between the many future Division I lacrosse players SSSAS and the field hockey program.  For example, about 5 years ago the Washington Post All-Met field hockey player of the year was a Saints player who was a Division I lacrosse commit.  Saints are at the top of the ISL this year by a good margin.

Other good programs in the ISL which have won in the past 5 years (there is less dominance in field hockey by SSSAS than lacrosse) are Episcopal HS, Georgetown Visitation, and Bullis.  NCS also has a strong program for many years that is generally always in the mix towards the top of the league.  The ISL in the aggregate sends kids to a good mix of Division I schools for field hockey, including, in recent years, Princeton, Dartmouth, Brown, Wake Forest, and Drexel, as well of plenty of kids to strong academic/athletic DIII schools such as Williams, Amherst, and Middlebury.

In field hockey, the ISL has tended to be stronger than the Catholic league, the WCAC, but there have been exceptions.  Good Counsel had a dominant program for a while in the WCAC but that coach retired and soccer has become more of a focus at OLGC.  In the past couple of years St. John's has made some noise (won the WCAC last year) and should be strong for some time given the size of the study body, the emphasis on sports, and good coaching.  The DMV is not as strong in private school field hockey as the Richmond area VA private schools.

Unlike in lacrosse, in the DMV the successful public school programs in field hockey are stronger than the private school teams, benefiting from larger pools of kids to draw from and, in the case of Virginia schools, the fact that soccer and field hockey are played during different seasons so they get some good two-sport soccer/field hockey players who are strong athletes.  Schools like Westfield, Fairfax, Herndon (public school, VA) would pretty easily dominate in the private school leagues, as would the Maryland powerhouses closer to Annapolis such as Glenelg.

Although field hockey can be tough for spectators to understand (the rules can be somewhat technical), it is a blast to play.  Also, because kids don't generally start playing it at a very young age (there's not an analogue to the youth soccer programs), it can be easier for a girl to pick it up in middle school or high school and have a fun and competitive interscholastic sports experience even if not planning to play in college.[/quote]

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