By Alan Branch–
The field hockey team headed into ‘Alumnae Weekend’ on a hot win streak that featured four wins and zero losses. Tenacious defensive of play from their midfielders and freshman goalkeeper Ayeisha McFerran ultimately led to three consecutive shutouts and a number higher in their national ranking to No. 11 in the country.
Their success on the offensive side comes from their leading scorer, forward Stephanie Byrne. Byrne is a redshirt sophomore from Berlin, N.J., where she accomplished a list of accolades at an early start to her field hockey career at Eastern High School. She helped lead her team to the number one ranking in the country, both her junior and senior year.
Although, her interest in field hockey didn’t come about until her family moved to her hometown Berlin in the sixth grade. From there, her days playing soccer most of her life were over while her days playing field hockey had just begun.
Byrne’s search to find a college was inspired by her desire to go somewhere far away from home. Not just a place far away, but a new challenge for her to face. Senior Megan Anstotz whom she had played with on a club team in high school and is now a teammate at U of L, gave her a reason to visit the school.
“It was really far away but I still wanted to see it. So I came on my visit and I fell in love,” says Byrne.
From the great atmosphere on campus to the small town feels that the city of Louisville notoriously encompasses, Byrne confidently believed that she had found a new home away from home. A place that she felt welcomed, specifically from the athletic department and the care they showed for their student athletes.
Sadly, a new obstacle had already presented itself to Byrne her freshman year at U of L. She was diagnosed with compartment syndrome which is a condition where increased blood pressure occurs in a group of organs or muscles that form areas called compartments. That leads to an inadequate blood flow to those tissues in the compartment, which can result in severe tissue damage, loss of body function or even death.
This required immediate surgery in her legs and ultimately led to her being redshirted her freshman year.
“Overcoming that made it really hard for me to get back into things. I struggled a lot even last year kind of like learning how to play with my legs ‘new’. So I had to come into this year with a different attitude because it was really hard for me to get over being hurt,” says Byrne.
One thing that stuck out about her recovery from that injury was her attitude. Overcoming adversity and just playing through it sounds easier said than done, but that is exactly what Byrne was able to do.
The next year, she was able to bounce back and assist her team in achieving what she calls her proudest accomplishment that she has had in her entire field hockey career; beating No. 1 North Carolina in a 3-2 thriller last season. It was the first win over a No. 1 ranked team in program history. Her smile stretches from ear to ear whenever she talks about it that shows how much that victory meant to her and the team.
From that alone, you can tell that Byrne exhibits a certain type of competitive spirit which evidently exists within the entire team. Going into this year there was one word she consistently brought up to describe her team, and that was chemistry.
Byrne admits, “I think our team is really close. I’ve never been on a team this close, especially this year. Off the field we have great chemistry and on the field we have great chemistry. So I think that gives us an edge over other teams that we play this year too.”
Byrne has big hopes for her team this season, and that’s to win a national championship. She hopes to accomplish that in her time at U of L.
