Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Same as everyone else..driving hours to play teams from the same local area. Learning the alphabet playing WC Eagles A through Z just to get crushed by them at NITs. Well unless you get lucky and get Texas Pride 1 through infinity. Meanwhile a DD gets two minutes of playing time while the promise child age 13 and under play for U16/19 and contributes little if any to the game. Have only been witness to this for 10 years so maybe it’s a new fad. Sarcasm if you didn’t catch it or if it hit close to home. Why can’t we just let these play the game they love. If we really want quality play maybe we should do it by USAFH regions. This mega clubs then would have to play against themselves.

We have so many good clubs in the DMV so it surprises me we get just 1 NIQ site and date (Meadowbrook). There is probably a shortage of indoor court space in this area and Meadowbrook is just a miserable place to be, being so dirty, everyone so closely packed it, balls hitting spectators, but a place like Garrison Forest would work.

Not a fan of Meadowbrook. But it’s hard to find indoor space bc places don’t want their floors torn up by the sticks. And the local Clubs don’t have space of their own. So they’re limited where they can even practice- forget hosting tourneys.

This are has several clubs, though I dont think any of them are “good” like you find in PA. Nova def isn’t a college feeder. We lack the courts/fields. We lack coaches- including specialty coaching like you see in PA and even in VA Beach. Would love to see something like The Vault in Nova. And regular position-specific coaching. My kid made huge gains doing those things but we spent a lot of weekends gone doing it. Would be great to have those resources locally.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Same as everyone else..driving hours to play teams from the same local area. Learning the alphabet playing WC Eagles A through Z just to get crushed by them at NITs. Well unless you get lucky and get Texas Pride 1 through infinity. Meanwhile a DD gets two minutes of playing time while the promise child age 13 and under play for U16/19 and contributes little if any to the game. Have only been witness to this for 10 years so maybe it’s a new fad. Sarcasm if you didn’t catch it or if it hit close to home. Why can’t we just let these play the game they love. If we really want quality play maybe we should do it by USAFH regions. This mega clubs then would have to play against themselves.

We have so many good clubs in the DMV so it surprises me we get just 1 NIQ site and date (Meadowbrook). There is probably a shortage of indoor court space in this area and Meadowbrook is just a miserable place to be, being so dirty, everyone so closely packed it, balls hitting spectators, but a place like Garrison Forest would work.

Garrison Forest is tough because you can’t get regulation courts in the space alotted. There just aren’t a lot of places willing to let you mark up their hardwood courts. Additionally, you have to have clubs step up to run a qualifier site. That’s a lot of work in addition to running a regular season. I can’t see a club like Metro being able to step up for that sort of thing.

The Charlotte site was the last to post for qualifiers and they just posted. Looks like all qualifying teams are now listed

Anonymous wrote:Same as everyone else..driving hours to play teams from the same local area. Learning the alphabet playing WC Eagles A through Z just to get crushed by them at NITs. Well unless you get lucky and get Texas Pride 1 through infinity. Meanwhile a DD gets two minutes of playing time while the promise child age 13 and under play for U16/19 and contributes little if any to the game. Have only been witness to this for 10 years so maybe it’s a new fad. Sarcasm if you didn’t catch it or if it hit close to home. Why can’t we just let these play the game they love. If we really want quality play maybe we should do it by USAFH regions. This mega clubs then would have to play against themselves.

We have so many good clubs in the DMV so it surprises me we get just 1 NIQ site and date (Meadowbrook). There is probably a shortage of indoor court space in this area and Meadowbrook is just a miserable place to be, being so dirty, everyone so closely packed it, balls hitting spectators, but a place like Garrison Forest would work.

Anonymous wrote:Same as everyone else..driving hours to play teams from the same local area. Learning the alphabet playing WC Eagles A through Z just to get crushed by them at NITs. Well unless you get lucky and get Texas Pride 1 through infinity. Meanwhile a DD gets two minutes of playing time while the promise child age 13 and under play for U16/19 and contributes little if any to the game. Have only been witness to this for 10 years so maybe it’s a new fad. Sarcasm if you didn’t catch it or if it hit close to home. Why can’t we just let these play the game they love. If we really want quality play maybe we should do it by USAFH regions. This mega clubs then would have to play against themselves.

^ nailed it!

Multiple sites played this weekend. Not sure if those are posted.

Will not see this weekends results yet. They run 3 to 4 days slow

Anonymous wrote:Retired parent here.

What web site do I need to see the results from qualifiers.

https://www.usafieldhockey.com/events/2025/February/14/nit/qualified-teams

Retired parent here.

What web site do I need to see the results from qualifiers.

Wonder if that displaced Delaware Sharks players so the better new kids could play. We have seen that a lot in this forum where girls are packed into a team to displace those already there. This is all about parents kicking their DD for recruiting positions. No one cares about their club it seems. I wonder how many of this girls get D1 offers at ridiculously expensive colleges to ride the bench and get minimum scholarships. We all been better taking the girls to science fairs and tutoring sessions. Field hockey was suppose to be fun.

Anonymous wrote:Same as everyone else..driving hours to play teams from the same local area. Learning the alphabet playing WC Eagles A through Z just to get crushed by them at NITs. Well unless you get lucky and get Texas Pride 1 through infinity. Meanwhile a DD gets two minutes of playing time while the promise child age 13 and under play for U16/19 and contributes little if any to the game. Have only been witness to this for 10 years so maybe it’s a new fad. Sarcasm if you didn’t catch it or if it hit close to home. Why can’t we just let these play the game they love. If we really want quality play maybe we should do it by USAFH regions. This mega clubs then would have to play against themselves.

Honestly, WC should have multiple teams in the top pool. Spreading them out, one per pool, only means they win more pools and that the A pool (talking u14 and down) isn’t actually all the strongest teams. I realize teams are “grouped” so all the level 1 teams play each other, all the level 2 teams play each other etc. but it still doesn’t put all the strongest teams against one another. And there is definitely a difference between the A pool and the F pool even though they may both be level 1 teams.

Obviously it’s a different story for u16 and u19, but even with the seeding and re-ranking, it seems they never play themselves.

My daughter has played WC plenty, Diamonds on down, and I really don’t mind because the challenge has made her a stronger player. No other club compares.

Side note, last year, I was told a group of WC players, who were not good enough for their RCC team, played for Delaware Sharks at RCC. I heard they practiced with WC as always, but they registered with the Sharks under USA field hockey in order to play for them at RCC. I wonder if we will see more of this.

Same as everyone else..driving hours to play teams from the same local area. Learning the alphabet playing WC Eagles A through Z just to get crushed by them at NITs. Well unless you get lucky and get Texas Pride 1 through infinity. Meanwhile a DD gets two minutes of playing time while the promise child age 13 and under play for U16/19 and contributes little if any to the game. Have only been witness to this for 10 years so maybe it’s a new fad. Sarcasm if you didn’t catch it or if it hit close to home. Why can’t we just let these play the game they love. If we really want quality play maybe we should do it by USAFH regions. This mega clubs then would have to play against themselves.

NITQs happening over break and the next few weeks. How’s everyone doing?

Coaches favorites or nepotism play in too. Weak schedules give teams half their wins by playing .500 or below teams. Then there are some teams stacked with travel players such are some of the ISL teams that it is impossible to fairly grade and compare players. I think it best to combine the metro list into top players in the area and get rid of the first,second honorable mention categories. Leave that for each all district or all regional lists

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:First off congratulations to all the girls on the list! My issue is it never has enough detail to complain about. The first team selections have a write up and you can read and for the most point understand what each player accomplished tho be on this list. Sometimes it is more how the team responded to the play and achieve a team championship. Sometimes impact players are not the ones you think of first but without them the team suffers. My issue is we never have enough space to read what the coach submitted for consideration of second team and honorable mentions. Each girl should be proud of that and the nomination for such an award. Now not criticizing the player but Leonardtown MD is all metro? How far away can you be? How com Stafford teams are not considered? Annapolis? Maybe the Post has high readership in Leonardtown.

How is someone with only a few goals and assists this year a first team all met? I get that there are other intangibles but really?

This happens year. All State and All Met selections who’s stats are subpar yet make it onto the list somehow. Motivated high school coaches of successful teams have a strong say for their favorites. A lot of These girls also tend to “decide” not to play in college (read: didn’t get recruited D1 so go to VA Tech or JMU instead as a student only.)