TORONTO 鈥� sa国际传媒 and the U.S. have company in this brand of women鈥檚 hockey. Plenty of it. They aren鈥檛 guaranteed gold or silver simply by showing up, as in the ice version.
In field hockey, you have to qualify just to get to the Summer Olympics. There are no free passes, as there are for these two nations in the lesser-played ice version in the Winter Games.
And that Olympic dream, at least for Rio 2016, died hard Wednesday for Maddie Secco of Victoria and University of Victoria Vikes products Kaitlyn Williams, Thea Culley and Danielle Hennig.
The world No. 5 U.S. defeated No. 20 sa国际传媒 3-0 in the women鈥檚 field hockey semifinals at the 2015 Pan American Games to advance to the gold-medal game Friday against world No. 3 Argentina. The gold medallist from these Games advances to the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics. All other avenues for sa国际传媒, through Rio qualifiers played earlier in the year, have been exhausted.
The Island has a tremendous tradition in women鈥檚 field hockey through past Olympians such as Lynne Beecroft, Nancy Mollenhauer (nee Charlton), Shelley Andrews, Rochelle Low, Milena Gaiga, Deb Whitten, Diane Virjee and Laurelee Kopeck. The reality sank in Wednesday for the current Canadian players that they will have to wait until Tokyo 2020 to get another chance to join them.
鈥淭he road is over 鈥� we put a lot of hard work into this 鈥� we fought hard to the end and can鈥檛 ask for more than that 鈥� and the crowd was fantastic,鈥� said Oak Bay High grad Secco, fighting back tears at the end of the match.
鈥淥ur goal was 2016, but it鈥檚 nice to know what is coming down the pipe. Our team is really young and we have a lot to look forward to in the future. Now we want to end our journey with a really good game for the bronze medal [Friday] to show Chile what sa国际传媒 can bring,鈥� added the 21-year-old NCAA Pac-12 Stanford Cardinal star.
Canadian starter Williams rivals Whitten as the greatest goalkeeper in UVic Vikes history.
鈥淯Vic prepared me for the next step and is what brought me here,鈥� said Williams.
鈥淚t鈥檚 very disappointing to lose but we competed to the very end. The training for 2020 begins with the bronze-medal game.鈥�
sa国际传媒 is captained by Katie Gillis, daughter of former Vancouver Canucks GM and future UVic law school teacher Mike Gillis, who was in the stands here.
鈥淲e鈥檙e very disappointed . . . we played really hard,鈥� said Gillis.
鈥淏ut this is definitely a team that is growing and is young. I still hope to end my career at the Olympic Games [Tokyo 2020].鈥�
At the Games soccer venue in Hamilton, midfielder Emma Fletcher of Victoria and her Canadian women鈥檚 soccer teammates lost 1-0 Colombia in the semifinals.
sa国际传媒 fielded a developmental team of young players for the Toronto Games that will step into the senior team once the likes of veteran Emily Zurrer of Crofton step aside, possibly after the 2016 Rio Olympics. The youthful Kadeisha Buchanan, Ashley Lawrence and Jessie Fleming were already called up as part of the 2015 World Cup team this summer when host sa国际传媒 made the quarter-finals. The 20-year-old Fletcher, the only sa国际传媒 player, joined Buchanan, Lawrence and Fleming on the Canadian team at the Pan Am Games.
鈥淲e got unlucky and didn鈥檛 finish our chances,鈥� said Fletcher. 鈥淚 had an opportunity I didn鈥檛 finish. It was a good learning experience and showed there are things I can fix and what I need to focus on to reach the next level.鈥�
The Islander is switching NCAA teams this fall from LSU to Cal-Berkeley of the Pac-12.
The more than 50 Island athletes in these Games have won 17 medals, including 13 golds, in events across several sports over 12 days of competition. They are chasing the 21 medals that Island athletes won at the 2011 Pan Am Games in Guadalajara, Mexico.
