By Dave Johnson
W&M Athletics
 
During the season, coaches like to see obvious improvement between the first and second games. William & Mary field hockey coach Tess Ellis has seen that already in the preseason.
 
The Tribe scheduled two scrimmages — the first against Old Dominion, the second against American. Two challenging opponents, and Ellis was happy to see her players take what they learned against the Monarchs and apply it to the Eagles.
 
"They stepped up in practice, and the things we worked on the two days after the ODU scrimmage, the girls were able to bring into the game," said Ellis, whose 11th season will begin at home Friday night against James Madison. "We definitely looked more composed out there, which was nice.
 
"We played a more free-flowing style of hockey in the sense of being comfortable in whatever position you might rotate into. That's probably been something we've worked on since the spring, and now we're sort of like, 'This can work if we're all on the same page.'"
 
The Tribe (9-8, 3-3 In the CAA last fall) returns seven players who started at least 13 games last season. That includes graduate student Lauren Curran, who has scored 22 goals over the last two seasons. It also includes Maddie George, who led the CAA in goals against average (1.42) and shutouts (five).
 
Also back is grad student Audrey Domovich, who has started 38 consecutive games on defense. Seniors Allison Goodwin (two game-winning goals in '22) and Maddie McGaughey (30 career starts) return in the midfield.
 
And there's senior Jayden Moon and junior Pyper Friedman, midfielders who trained with the U.S. U-21 team over the summer.
 
"The most important part is when you have someone who has experience, the younger players have role models in front of them to mimic," Ellis said. "There's a lot of good role models for these young players to follow."
 
A key addition is grad transfer Lonica McKinney, who was VCU's second-leading goal scorer in each of her last two seasons. A Canadian, she will be enrolled in the Business Analytics program at the Mason School of Business.
 
"She's extremely fast," Ellis said. "She's been training with the Canadian women's national team all summer. She had to make a tough choice to step away … she is young, I think she will definitely have a future with the Canadian national team. But now, it's giving 100% to her education."
 
Ellis believes sophomore midfielders Olivia Stocks and Emme Schwartz will see an increased role this season. Among the freshmen, Josie Mae Gruendel and Mackinzie Brown in particular have had strong preseasons.
 
A major point of emphasis will be improving on last year's scoring opportunities. W&M was fifth in goals per game (1.65) and seventh in shots (8.94) and corners (4.41).
 
"If we can earn a few more corners and get more goals, that will probably be the difference between last year's team and this year's team," she said. "We need to convert a lot more on corners. We can earn them, we've just got to score on them."
 
A significant change in CAA field hockey this season has all conference games being played on Friday starting Sept. 15. That's two weeks earlier than last season.
 
For the 12th consecutive year, only four of the CAA's seven field hockey members will make the postseason tournament. W&M missed the field last season for the first time since 2015.
 
"We get to play six conference games to get ourselves in the top four," Ellis said. "We just need to make sure that when we start conference, we're ready to go."