By Alan Branch–

A time of reflection and evaluation comes after another season for U of L field hockey head coach Justine Sowry. She reflects on the 2015 season, which she felt, “Exceeded her expectations.” The Cards ended the season with an overall record of 13-7. Nine of their 13 wins were shutouts, which led the ACC. Not to mention an unblemished non-conference record of 12-0, as well as three wins against teams in the top 20 National Field Hockey Coaches’ Association rankings.

“Of course I have done a lot of reflecting and evaluating, after the season– directly or immediately, and then for a month afterwards. And when I look at the season overall, I think we exceeded our expectations,” said Sowry.

Even with the past achievements, Sowry takes her team’s success with a grain a salt and sees plenty of room for improvement for her young, maturing team. With four seniors graduating from U of L at the end of the spring semester, the team looks to fill major voids that will be left on the defensive side by the two team captains and midfielders Elisa Garcia and Victoria Stratton. Midfielders are essentially the eyes of the field so when you have two of them leaving, who were also captains, it is a “huge” setback for the team as it prepares to regroup for the 2016 season.

Sowry is looking forward to spring as an invitation for players to emanate as leaders of the team, and thrust upon themselves the mantle of continued success in moving the program forward.

“It is going to be a great opportunity this spring for someone or hopefully multiple people to emerge in a positive way to help us achieve our goals,” says Sowry. “It is important we have leaders that emerge that are doing things for the mission of our program, which is to prepare, compete and win championships.”

She went on explaining the relationship between leadership and “follow-ship” that needs to exist within the team so that they can start moving in the right direction. Established vocal leaders like juniors Lotta Kahlert and Gianna Perrone may be poised to make the emergence as captains for the team and continue building on the foundation that has already been set by the leaders before them. There is a four-to-five year cycle that exists in most collegiate field hockey programs that urges coaches like Sowry to look at where the team is from a foundation point-of-view, and not necessarily just at achieving the ultimate goal of winning championships.

“We have a bunch of younger players (student athletes) that have a lot of talent but they are still maturing. This spring will be the difference for me in whether I think they are ready or not. But we do have a handful, and again the spring is going to be a great time to see who is committed to developing and stepping up in leading this program,” Sowry said.

Another area of development is the mental conditioning and toughness of the team. This past October, the team had hired one of 15 full-time mental coaches in the country which is something she feels will benefit the team greatly on their mental development and whether or not a player will rise to the challenge or fall.

“You can equate it (a player’s development) to sitting in a chair with four legs; there’s the technical, tactical, and physical leg, which all three we have covered here at U of L. But it’s that mental piece– that if you’re not working at, you’ll fall over,” Sowry said.

During the preparation in the spring and summer, how the players react to their shortcomings or mistakes by the words they say and how they think, alludes to the mental toughness that is needed or missing to carry a team to the next level of competition. Sowry passionately explained how it affects her players’ confidence and growth as a group, which is something she wants to challenge her players to overcome not just as individuals but as a team.

Positive energy is contagious; hopefully the team can begin building that energy in the spring when Sowry intends to have her team travel to Virginia for competition play although plans have not been finalized yet.