University of Victoria (UVic) women’s field hockey players are coming home winners after capturing the U SPORTS national championship title this weekend.
The UVic Vikes’ team, with a roster of more than 20 players, scored their fifth-straight and 16th overall win on Sunday, Nov. 5, at Back Campus Fields in Toronto, Ont., where they competed against the University of Toronto.
Less than two minutes in, Amanda Adams scored for the Vikes, putting them ahead 1-0, reads a news release. Then, Julia Boraston doubled the team’s lead 2-0 before Josie Dunham sealed the win 3-0.
The team completed the comeback in the best-of-three series, losing game one 1-1 (2-3 shootout), but winning games two and three, 1-0 and 3-0, respectively.
U SPORTS is the national governing body of university sports in Canada, and UVic’s Libby Hogg was named the U SPORTS Championship MVP for 2023.
Anni Kleinschmidt received the R.W. Fair Play Award for outstanding sportsmanship, while Boraston collected player of the game honours following game three.
The Vikes ended the year with a record of 6-2-3 (win-loss-tie), and the 2023 championship marked the first under first-year head coach Krista Thompson.
“I am incredibly proud of this young group of athletes,” said Thompson, who was part of eight previous national titles as an assistant coach.
“We talked today in our team meeting before the game about taking care of the little things and I think our players went out there, and they did that quite early.”
Thompson says they saved their best game for this last one.
“We never really talked about winning,” she added. “We always talk about the process and the details, and in order to have the end result like we did today you have to take care of all those little things.”
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Ethan Morneau
