Field hockey standout on her way to Virginia
She’s a great player and an even better person, says coach
ELMIRA — The field hockey journey started with a broken foot.
Six and a half years later, Morgan Hanley is one of Waterloo Region’s top high school players and a future student-athlete at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Va.
The Elmira District Secondary School student recently signed a scholarship package to study exercise science at VCU and compete for the Rams in the NCAA’s Atlantic 10 Conference.
The team is trending in the right direction under secondyear head coach Stacey Bean and came within one win of reaching last month’s NCAA Division 1 championship, falling 1-0 to the Saint Joseph’s Hawks of Philadelphia in the conference final.
Hanley, a fleet-footed, rightside defender, considered several offers before choosing to continue her field hockey career at VCU.
She paid a visit to the school in June, after previous trips to the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Miami (Ohio), and felt an immediate connection to the campus, coaching staff and future teammates.
“The facilities were amazing and meeting the coaches, and some of the field hockey girls that were there for a camp, they spoke so highly of VCU and they had so much pride in their school. I loved that, that every everyone loves their school so much and they were happy there, a little VCU family,” said the 17-year-old Hanley.
“(Bean) is very supportive but she really pushes, and she wants the best for her athletes. I think that’s somewhere that I can go to grow as a person and a player, and I think she will be a great mentor for me.”
The five-foot-two Hanley literally stumbled onto field hockey by chance, thanks to a broken foot she suffered in the first half of 2012 while goofing around with friends at the Woolwich Gymnastics Club.
The injury sidelined her for more than a year and during that period, the energetic youngster had all kinds of time to think.
“I loved gymnastics, but I wanted to try something else,” she said.
That something else turned out to be field hockey.
Hanley launched her field hockey career during her Grade 7 year at Park Manor Public School, where she played two seasons for Kathy Brezynskie and fell in love with the sport.
She went on to play four seasons at Elmira and helped the Lancers, under coaches Tricia Cressman and Lisa Douglas, earn a spot in this year’s Waterloo County (WCSSAA) final against the Bluevale Knights.
Outside of school, she honed her skills with the K-W Dragons field hockey club before moving to the Brampton-based A&C Field Hockey Academy.
The latter organization travels to several showcase tournaments during the season and that is how Hanley caught the attention of NCAA coaches and recruiters.
She has twice represented Ontario at Canadian championships — winning gold in 2017 and bronze this year — and is a member of Field Hockey Canada’s “NextGen” training program. She was with the national team this past summer in Victoria, B.C., and will be part of the Ontario wing of the program set to start next month at the University of Waterloo.
Coach Bean said she’s looking forward to getting down to work with Hanley, a skilled player who she expects will be a pleasure to work with. “As a person, she’s got great energy and that generally translates into being a good teammate. And as good as she is as a player, she’s an even better person and that’s what we’re looking for, to really build a program around kids like that,” said Bean, a former CIS player at Laurentian University in Sudbury.
“As a player, gosh, she’s quick ... she’s got speed that you can’t teach, her hockey IQ, every time I see her, gets better in terms of her decision-making with and without the ball, and she’s coachable. They are all wins in my book.”
Bean featured four freshmen in her starting lineup this year and said Hanley will be given every
opportunity to make a difference from the start.
“We don’t recruit to redshirt (sit out a season), we recruit kids that we think are capable of making an impact right away,” she said.
One of Hanley’s coaches at Elmira would agree.
Hanley has served as a teacher’s assistant in Cressman’s Grade 9 art class and the two have a wonderful relationship in
the classroom, as well as the field hockey pitch.
Hanley hopes to become a physical education/science teacher after graduating from university and Cressman would be the first in line to give her an enthusiastic recommendation.
“Morgan is one of the most mature, talented and dedicated athletes I have ever taught,” said Cressman.
“She’s a quiet leader who leads by example in everything she does. She had the complete respect of her teammates and coaches because she was so
skilled, but also because she worked so hard each practice and game.”
Field hockey and school occupy most of her spare time, said Hanley, yet she has maintained a connection to her former sport by coaching at the Woolwich Gymnastics Club.
The sports enthusiast — she has also played ice hockey, basketball, volleyball and badminton over the years — lists snowboarding and baking as hobbies.