Season Outlook: The Defense

The University of Louisville field hockey team is two days away from its season-opening weekend. With 12 letterwinners and six starters back from a team that helped Louisville post a 14-8 overall record, advance to the finals of ACC Championship and earn its fourth-straight NCAA tournament appearance, the eighth-ranked Cards are poised to continue the momentum of a historic 2017 season.

The final installment of the 2018 outlook features a preview of the Cardinals' defense, one of the most veteran units on the field.

Junior Carter Ayars (Wilmington, Del.) will likely hold down the fort at center back. After seeing time in every game as a freshman, she earned a starting role in all 22 contests last season and went on to earn ACC All-Tournament and NFHCA All-West Region honors.

Senior Maria Gomez (Madrid, Spain) also brings experience and leadership to the backfield after playing every game for the Cardinals last season.

Team co-captain junior Isabella Leeker (St. Louis, Mo.) will also continue to lead the Cardinals after a solid spring campaign.

With a year of experience under their belts, sophomores AnnMarie Habelow, Alli Bitting and Meghan Schneider and Sarah Sabaluski will also look to compete for a starting role after honing their skills in the USA Field Hockey Young Women's National Championship over the summer.

Habelow (Belmont, Mass) played in all 22 games with nine starts in the backfield last season and looks to continue her progress.

Bitting also saw time in every game and started 15. The Hummelstown, Pa., native went on to earn ACC All-Tournament honors and ended the season with a great deal of momentum.

Schneider (San Diego, Calif.) played in all 22 games with five starts and had a productive offseason in the USA Field Hockey system which culminated in a selection to the U21 national team.

Like her fellow classmates in the back field, Sabaluski (Lehman, Pa.) also made an immediate impact as a rookie by playing in all 22 contests and continued to work on her game over the summer.

"We have a lot of flexibility," said head coach Justine Sowry. "They will be very competitive, each of them has a different skill set. The people that get the job will be the ones that have a lot of discipline on defense. We have a lot of depth, but it's going to be on any given day who gets into the lineup. They've got solid outletting skills, but they're going to have to be disciplined defensively and whoever is able to do that, by making smart decisions will get the starting job."

Goalkeepers

Back for her senior season on the heels of helping Hockey Ireland to a silver medal in the 2018 World Cup is Ayeisha McFerran. The Larne, Northern Ireland native is three-time National Field Hockey Coaches Association (NFHCA) All-America selection. The three-time All-West Region and All-ACC team member cemented her status as one of the nation's top goalkeepers when she collected a career-high 18 saves and turned in another brilliant shootout performance to hold off No. 2 Duke in the semifinals of the conference tournament, sending the Cardinals to their first appearance in the ACC Championship game.

Junior Hollyn Barr (Lancaster, Pa.) earned accolades of her own in 2017 when she became Louisville's first NFHCA National Defensive Player of the Week and was named ACC Defensive Player of the Week after picking up wins against Indiana, Delaware and Kent State. She posted a 4.1 record and a 0.92 goals against average while playing in eight games with five starts.

Local standout Sam Minrath (Louisville, Ky.) brings an impressive resume after being named Kentucky High School Athletic Association (KHSAA) state tournament Most Valuable Player and Field Hockey Student-Athlete of the Year as well as NFHCA All-Midwest Region honors. Over the summer, she was selected to participate in the USA Field Hockey Under 19 Junior National Camp.

Outlook
Overall, the team features a balance of talented veterans and newcomers who will be tested early and often in the midst of a schedule which features 10 opponents ranked among the top 25 in the nation in the National Field Hockey Coaches' Association preseason poll.

"Our out of conference schedule is going to be very tough for us and the ACC is the ACC – always formidable year in and year out," said Sowry. "We are looking to build on what we did last year. We're more experienced, we have experience in each line, so we just need to build upon that and we need to integrate the freshmen and find the right combinations."

University of Louisville Athletics

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Players Mentioned

Carter Ayars

Hollyn Barr

Alli Bitting

Maria Gomez

AnnMarie Habelow

Isabella Leeker

Ayeisha McFerran

Sam Minrath

Sarah Sabaluski

Meghan Schneider

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