Yesterday, with a 3-1 loss to Germany, the United States U-21 women’s national team dropped the fifth-place classification game at the FIH Women’s Junior World Cup.
Still, this resulted in the highest placing an American side has achieved in the history of the junior tournament — sixth place.
Given the amount of effort, money, and human resources that have been plowed into youth field hockey over the last 30 years, a lot of my field hockey friends are waking up and saying, “It’s about time.”
That’s because the United States reportedly has more salaried coaches in the sport than any nation on Earth. This comes from the club space, where you’re seeing a lot of scholastic coaches migrating to, either on a part-time or a full-time basis.
So, why did the U.S. do better than it has in any other JWC in history? There’s one place to start:
Coaching. Ange Bradley is one of the best field hockey minds in this country. Because she left Syracuse at the end of 2022, she still has a lot of the modern knowledge of the game and its tactics, and she helped build a brilliant U.S. side.
College players matter. Many long-time observers remember what happened to U.S. teams when Junior World Cups were scheduled between Labor Day and Thanksgiving. Because of the NCAA season, there have been times when top players were not made available for the Junior World Cup. This was definitely the case in 1997, when a team of scholastic players was sent to South Korea.
It was not the best experience for the American side, which found themselves having to play not only against older competition, but quality competition. The 1997 Argentina junior national side, for example, was one of legends, including Marina Di Giacomo, Cecilia Rognoni, and future eight-time FIH World Player of the Year, Luciana Aymar.
The 2025 team had a number of players who were just coming off their college seasons and very much in form, including Daniela Mendez-Trendler, Alaina McVeigh, Olivia Bent-Cole, Josie Hollamon, and Alyssa Klebasko.
Youth players matter. The non-collegians on the U.S. roster had much to contribute to the effort, whether it was Ella Beach’s passes or Reese D’Ariano’s finishes. D’Ariano, who is a top candidate for best young player of this Junior World Cup, had three goals for the States.
The younger players were blended splendidly by the U.S. coaching staff together with the collegians to make a unified whole.
Penalty corners matter. The United States scored six out of 24 corner chances, an enviously-good 25 percent for the tournament. And what should make opposing technical directors for national teams going forward is that the United States got six different scorers on those penalty corners.
Sure, you’d like to have an ace dragflicker like a Maartje Paumen or an Agustina Gorzelany as a primary option. But to have the diverse threats around the circle is an good problem to have if you’re on attack.
Ultimately, club organization matters. OK, so let’s look at the five nations that are finishing ahead of the United States in this competition. All five — The Netherlands, Belgium, China, Argentina, and Germany — have established regional and national club competition at both the senior and junior levels.
While the United States has a good youth club system, you cannot say the same about post-collegiate competition. There is, for example, no adult league for, say, the best adult players attached to W.C. Eagles, IFHCK, Seacoast United, Texas Pride, or Freedom to compete in.
I was so hoping that there would be more events like the Harrow Cup, which we witnessed in 2013 in Philadelphia, to boost adult club competition in the United States.
I still think it could happen, and it could help youth competition in the United States to higher aspirations.
