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Field hockey team reaps 'bonus'
By KATHY RUMLESKI -- London Free Press
London, Ont. - The Western women's field hockey team considers its first trip to the national championship "a bonus."
But that doesn't mean they're just happy to be there.
Coach Jennifer Symmes, last year's national coach of the year, said her team will be playing with a lot of pride and expects to do well.
"We take pride in our performance, especially after the tiering," said Symmes, who took her team from a 2-7-3 regular season record in 2001 to 5-4-3 last year. This year, it was 6-4-4.
"As this is new, we want to represent Western well. We don't want to be thrown off our game."
The field hockey team was relegated to the third tier last year and receives no funding from the university.
Symmes said her team "really wanted to get to nationals" to prove they could succeed despite the setback.
She said Western's first goal is to advance out of pool play. The top two teams from each pool make the playoff round.
Western meets No. 1-ranked University of British Columbia, which has won three national titles since 1998, tomorrow and then plays St. Mary's on Friday at Appleby College in Oakville. York is the tournament host.
Western is ranked fourth in the tournament. St. Mary's is fifth.
The Mustangs advanced to the Canadian Interuniversity Sport championship by defeating the Queen's Golden Gaels 1-0 in the Ontario University Athletics semifinal.
They lost 2-0 to the Waterloo Warriors in the final last Saturday. The Warriors are ranked third in the nationals.
Symmes said defeating Queen's was particularly satisfying as they lost to the Golden Gaels 1-0 in last year's semifinal.
"We split the regular season (a win and a loss) so it was really a 50-50- game."
Andrea Gale scored with only eight minutes remaining in the tight game to give Western the victory.
"We've been working up to (the nationals) the last couple of years," Symmes said.
She said the key to victory for the Mustangs this week will be building the offence slowly and taking advantage of penalty corners.
"We've got a strong offensive penalty corner unit. Our defence penalty corner unit is very strong, too. We play a balanced style of hockey."
Festivities begin tonight with the tournament banquet, where a
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