It was only a couple of days ago when USA Field Hockey dropped the senior women’s national team player pool, which is 37 members strong. The pool of players includes members of last year’s Olympic team, collegiate stars, and teenage star Reese D’Ariano.
It was therefore a pretty diverse bunch of players that head coach David Passmore selected for the pool of players that he will be taking to the FIH Nations Cup tournament in Chile.
But what’s interesting here are the players that are not going to the Chile tournament in search of winning their way back into the FIH Pro League. U.S. captain Ashley Hoffman is not on the traveling roster. Nor is goalkeeper Kelsey Bing, or key scorers Megan Valzonis or Abigail Tamer.
Instead, this team will be led on the field by co-captains Amanda Golini and Alexandra Hammel. Attacking talents Beth Yeager and Ashley Sessa will be leading off the front, and Leah Crouse and Meredith Sholder will be counted on in the rearguard.
What I find interesting are some of the younger players who will be participating in their first international tournament, such as Katie Dixon, Jans Croon, and dragflick specialist Caroline Ramsey.
It is an interesting evolution of the roster, but I think it’s also a subtle message. That message is that the U.S. team has depth, and that the coaching staff believes it can beat the field of seven other sides (including contenders like New Zealand and India) without stocking the roster with Olympic veterans.
I think a couple of people you need to keep an eye on for this team are Sanne Caarls and Jans Croon. Both players were born in the Netherlands. Heck, Caarls was one a participant for Holland’s national team before making her one lifetime transfer to the U.S. national team. Croon, on the other hand, moved with her family to the U.S. at the age of 12 and found the adult hockey league at Moorpark, Calif.
It will be interesting to see how this group of 20 players develops in the month before the opening hitback of the FIH Nations Cup.