By: Noah Allison

If you watched Lotta Kahlert play field hockey, you would think she was strictly business and honestly a little bit intimidating. She scored the Cards’ first goal of the year just two minutes into the season opener against St. Louis. Her six goals have helped the Cards kick in the ACC’s door en route to their current 11-4 record.

But the truth is the sophomore from Hamburg, Germany is just a happy-go-lucky, down to earth sweetheart who happens to be a very skilled player on a very good team.

“I started playing when I was ten, which in Germany is pretty late. A lot of people start playing when they’re like four because there are field hockey families who give them their sticks before they can even run. I came in pretty late because nobody plays field hockey in my family,” Kahlert explains. “My best friend basically dragged me to practice one time and I just liked it so I stayed.”

You’ll come to learn that Kahlert doesn’t stress too many things. She does what makes sense and does what feels right. She started her athletic career much later in life than most division one athletes, but she wasn’t worried about making a career out of field hockey. She just wanted to have fun.

“When I was younger, I was like basically a boy. I would just play soccer with the guys all afternoon but I never actually joined a club in anything even though I would run around and play so many sports. So that was the first time I actually had the ambition to start something in a club. I liked the girls and just had fun.

“Plus, we only practiced twice during the week and had games on the weekend. So it was very relaxed, you just go there, see your friends and hang out, it’s really nice,” Kahlert said with a humorous grin.

It was around the age of 15 in the German championships that Kahlert became aware of her knack for the game and that others took notice of her. But without breaking character, it was in true Lotta fashion.

“My team in Hamburg, we weren’t one of the best clubs even in our city, so we were always the underdogs in everything. The first time we made it into the German championships we ended up winning the game that we really were not supposed to win, like at all, I don’t know how we did it. And then we made it to the elite eight and won that game too and we were like completely confused, it was funny. We were completely the underdog team and nobody knew how we did it, it was actually really cute looking back on it.

“After that run I ended up getting selected to the state team for my age group and the age group above me. I don’t even know how that happened, because I was always just like chilling, I don’t know, it just happened.”

Despite her modesty, Kahlert earned all her accolades. The natural goal scorer has risen to her coaching staff’s challenge of hard work and determination. As a role player her freshman year, Kahlert scored one goal and made three assists. This year many of her goals have gone unassisted, given her natural knack for slicing up defenses. But the youthful spirit and skill Kahlert brought to Louisville almost never made it here at all, if it weren’t for the last minute push U of L made in recruiting her.

“They were literally like, ‘You can come this weekend.’ And I was like, ‘Wait, you’re paying me to fly over to America, where I have never been before in my life, just to hang out on your campus, buy me food and then send me away again?’ They were like, ‘Yeah.’ So I said, Sure I’ll do that.’ It was so funny. It was at the end of May, which is so late, nobody commits that late. They did a really good job recruiting, they were all over it.” Kahlert acknowledged.

Kahlert had offers from the top field hockey schools in the nation, including Northwestern, Virginia and North Carolina. But when it came down to choosing her school it wasn’t just coming into a powerhouse and keeping the tradition that intrigued her, it was creating a powerhouse and building tradition.

“At that time Louisville was ranked about 25 or 27 in the country. I thought that was a cool thing because you could still make it to a higher ranking, you know, underdog. I didn’t want to go to number one, it was weird. When I saw that I got offers from other teams that were really good, it just didn’t really appeal to me to go to the number one or number five team at that time.”

Kahlert sure does have some foresight. Her freshman year, the Cardinals went 15-4 and made it to as high a ranking as 14. Despite the success, the Cards entered this season overlooked by many. But, after making it to as high as a number five ranking and beating multiple top 15 teams, including number one UNC, it’s clear Kahlert’s mission to help Louisville climb the national ladder is being achieved.

Kahlert alone is hardly the key to Louisville’s success though. She is one of eight players to score at least three goals and is one of four players to score at least six.

“This year we have a lot of goal scorers, its not just a few people who score all the time. We don’t have stars on the team. We obviously have players that work their butts off every single game and our seniors are amazing but everyone else is too. We have this super high work rate and we all work for each other, which makes the difference,” Kahlert explains.

“Other teams have stars that they depend on and when scouting them we find their key players to take care of. But we always think what would they do for our team, can they say key players? Because what defines us is we are a team, it’s not like we have our superstars that just dribble through everyone for these amazing goals, we just work hard for every one.”

Despite Kahlert’s positive, seemingly carefree attitude, it is clear that she cares about her team and Louisville.

Last year, despite suffering but one conference loss and going 15-4, Louisville field hockey did not make the NCAA tournament. With only 16 entries to the tournament you truly have to earn it to make it in. This year, Kahlert and the Louisville Cardinals aren’t going to let anybody say they didn’t earn it.

“Last year we got kicked out basically as the one team that didn’t make it. We were just sitting there watching in the locker room and our name didn’t show up. Team names popped up and it was just: not us, not us, not us and then it was over. We all sat there staring at the screen and it was just the worst feeling,” Kahlert described.

“We could have gotten in but it just didn’t happen. We basically didn’t take enough care of what we were doing in the regular season. We have to value every single game we play and this year we have been trying to do that. See the importance of every single opponent, of the St. Louis’ and UNC’s, and just have the same mentality going against everybody.”