Thank you for all the wonderful postings! This is really helpful. New poster but we have a middle school girl who is starting to get in to field hockey and we don't know much about it. We really appreciate all the great info!

Anonymous wrote:For girls who want to play year round but can't commit due to another travel sport there is a good option in Montgomery County that allows them to develop their skills and get ready for high school. My DD and her friends play for Koa on their development team and have really enjoyed it. I've seen a big improvement in her and while they want her to play club, Koa is understanding of the two sport athlete. She's in 8th grade right now but plans to play for them all year in play days and weekly practices. I know it's not as competitive as club but since many girls playing field hockey are also club lacrosse players I thought I'd mention it.

Good post! I think KOA is a great way for kids to get interested in this sport and get some experience. It's a lot of fun, and let me just say that not everybody necessarily wants to or is destined to play in college, and that's okay! Being on a varsity team in high school can be such a great experience in and of itself.

For girls who want to play year round but can't commit due to another travel sport there is a good option in Montgomery County that allows them to develop their skills and get ready for high school. My DD and her friends play for Koa on their development team and have really enjoyed it. I've seen a big improvement in her and while they want her to play club, Koa is understanding of the two sport athlete. She's in 8th grade right now but plans to play for them all year in play days and weekly practices. I know it's not as competitive as club but since many girls playing field hockey are also club lacrosse players I thought I'd mention it.

I looked up the great NCS FH Coach who had a great club team comprised of public and private school girls. Jane DeGrenier and her email is listed on the NCS site. We were involved with a lot of sports and found Jane to be just great. Our DD went to a rival school but Jane treated her as well as any of her "own girls". I google online and just saw she is getting some big award. She deserves it. It's been years since our dd played on her club team.

P.S. If your dh hasn't started fh before h.s., she should do the summer f.h. programs at the local colleges for summer camp such as AU and UMD or wherever.

Club teams. My DD was recruited for both DI FH and rowing. She chose rowing for an Ivy. NCS used to have a great club team operating from its coach ... Jane something. Don't think she is still there. Wonderful woman.

Anonymous wrote:What is the best way to learn the skills in high school to be able to be scouted for college?

Anonymous wrote:What is the best way to learn the skills in high school to be able to be scouted for college?

As another poster said, serious players augment playing in high school with playing on a club team, and there are club programs for students younger than high school. For Division I, generally schools are looking not only at skills but at body type. Would be unusual for a 5' 5" player, even with great skills, to get a serious look from Division I but players who are skilled but smaller or a little slower (proportionately, they are great athletes) can play Division III.

Basically:
1. Try to start early (by middle school at the latest);
2. Seek out a club program to augment skills and get more time in competition;
3. Try to take part in programs such as USA Field Hockey's Futures program (high level coaching on weekends in the spring);
4. Go to camps in the summer to build and hone skills;
5. By high school, play on a club that is taking part in some college showcase tournaments and big tournaments such as the National Field Hockey Festival over Thanksgiving or Disney in the winter;
6. Go to prospect camps at colleges you are interested in.

Like in many sports, colleges are recruiting from club teams, not high schools. The serious field hockey players are all on club teams. The club team players go too many different area high schools. I can't think of one team that is made up of all club team players - most have some club, but also others who just enjoy the sport, but aren't looking to continue in college and beyond.

The Baltimore area has a few really good programs. The top IAAM teams generally win all their out of conference games, even against other nationally ranked teams. Lots of those girls are on club teams, and you're really starting to see field hockey become the main sport for more athletes, rather than just something to do during the lacrosse off-season.

What is the best way to learn the skills in high school to be able to be scouted for college?

St.johns is great this year and Holton is very strong. I believe Holton goalie has committed to Stanford for lacrosse.

Anonymous wrote:Holton is having a great year and is undefeated so far but of course SSSA is always going to be strong.

Holton has a solid program and a pretty good team this year but has not yet played many of the strong teams in the ISL yet (Saints, Episcopal, Bullis, Stone Ridge, etc.). I think they can probably compete with most of those teams left on their schedule but not with the Saints -- the Saints have scoring power and a goalie who has committed to UVA for field hockey. SSSAS has pretty much blown out all the ISL teams this year.

Holton is having a great year and is undefeated so far but of course SSSA is always going to be strong.

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.

What are the best schools for field hockey?