Season Review: Continuing to Build a Strong Foundation
12/19/2018 4:00:00 PM | Field Hockey, Features
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By: Justin Lafleur, Lehigh Sports Communications
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Lehigh field hockey is building a strong foundation, one step at a time.
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Remember, before building a house, a foundation must be set.
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Even though on paper, the results from the Mountain Hawks' 2018 season don't jump off a page, the program is in a strong position for sustainable success because the program's foundation is almost in place.
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"We have done a lot of work over the last three years defining what we are, who we want to be and what that means in relation to our culture and our standards," said head coach Caitlin Dallmeyer, who just finished her third season at Lehigh. "At the end of this season, I finally felt like we had made great progress and are moving towards knowing and understanding what that foundation is, so we can begin an upward build.
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"We understand that progress is not always linear and we've had to take some detours in our route," Dallmeyer continued. "That has challenged us as a team and we've been proud as coaches that we've been able to rise to the challenge and make sure we're staying focused through adversity in a variety of ways throughout this past season, leading us to where we are right now."
 State of the Mountain Hawks
Where are the Mountain Hawks right now?
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They are a team that comes out to practice ready to compete, fights through adversity and is focused on the little things that ultimately lead to success. Those are just three of many ways to describe Lehigh field hockey.
Sophomore Lenke Havas
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"It felt like no matter if we won or lost over the weekend, come Tuesday morning, everyone was ready to take on the next week," said sophomore Lenke Havas. "We bounced back well from tough games, which allowed us to prepare better for the next game. With higher competitiveness and work rate, we were able to improve individually and as a team over the course of the season."
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"This year, the team came out with positive mindsets to every practice," said junior Amanda Boyer. "Even on conditioning days, we were ready to tackle the exercise and move onto playing hockey. By the end of the season, the focus in practice paid off, especially in our practices. This year, we were able to execute and score goals off of a lot of our corners, and I believe this success is attributed to our focus in practice."
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Focus in practice may seem like a small thing, but the ripple effect is large. Focus in practice comes from understanding that games aren't just won on days of competition, but rather, it's a compilation of countless hours of work during the season, and offseason.
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"We came into preseason very fit, so I think physically, we were prepared to work," said Dallmeyer. "With that, it was easier to maintain focus under fatigue. We saw better focus and output at practice than we had in the past, and a better desire to raise our teammates up to the level we needed in order to compete with stronger teams. It made practice more exciting and fun. As coaches, we were able to tackle more skills and strategies than we had previously because we knew we had the personnel to be able to do so. The student-athletes were coachable in a way that would allow things to catch on much quicker."
Head Coach Caitlin Dallmeyer
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Dallmeyer saw another benefit.
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"Being more fit made for a faster team on the field with the least amount of muscular injuries we have had in the last several years," she said. "With a small roster this year, we needed everyone ready to contribute and carry a bigger load. Fortunately, our commitment to fitness allowed us to stay on the field without muscle strains and pains slowing us down."
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It's evident the Mountain Hawks have bought into Coach Dallmeyer's vision for the program and that buy-in ties back to a word heard often within the program these days – culture – which is a key part of any strong foundation. Â
"Winning is really fun, but it's not fun when you aren't doing it with people you enjoy being around," said Dallmeyer. "We start in the recruiting process, putting such an emphasis in finding the right fit for our program, people who are going to contribute on the field, but also to our team dynamic – having high integrity and being willing to engage on a deeper level with those around them, and being able to give fully as servant leaders.
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"Those things already reflect in our team culture now, which shows we are bringing in the right people and they are able to flourish in this environment."
 Hard Work on Culture
All of Lehigh's work with culture – which includes activities like team bonding off the field, leadership meetings and much more – has already paid off.
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One of the biggest results from the program's work on culture was the Mountain Hawks fighting through times of adversity in 2018.
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"I don't know that in the past, we would have been able to sustain such a positive attitude through some of the speedbumps," said Dallmeyer. "The way our team carried itself and was able to have perspective during some challenging times shows great growth in our mindsets of overcoming hurdles. In the future, as we continue to build and face tough moments on the field, we'll be able to know where that all started from and how it was built."
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Some of the adversity Lehigh faced was injuries, including starting goalkeeper Paige Innarella missing four games mid-season and being replaced by sophomore walk-on Stephanie Brabender, someone who has played an integral role in the Mountain Hawks' strong culture, but hadn't seen any collegiate experience up until that point.
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"We also had a weekend without one of our top defenders (Sam Nason)," said Dallmeyer. "Then our veteran midfielder and most experienced senior, Isabel McKeown, going out for a period of time, we had to consistently change our lineup and our structure to accommodate the unexpected concussions and illness. We developed a resilience to being challenged in new positions on the field that allowed the players to quickly react and adjust in ways that best helped the team."
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That "reacting" led to on-field success, with Lehigh winning two of its last five games to end the season on a high note. The Mountain Hawks finished with three wins in 2018, defeating Ball State (for the first time since 1984), Colgate and Towson. Lehigh also took archrival Lafayette to overtime for a second straight year, scoring multiple goals against the Leopards for the first time since 2007. Lehigh also scored a goal in all six Patriot League contests for the first time in school history.
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Improvement in Skill
Despite the struggles in results at times, good things happened beyond simply culture. That strong foundation is leading to impressive signs on the field, which should only get better from here.
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"We definitely showed great advancement in our skill," said Dallmeyer. "We were much more aggressive this year than in the past. We were able to play a more attacking game because we could move up and down the field more fluently with top opponents, which resulted in more shots on goal and more goals scored. We spent a lot of time this past spring on fitness and skill development, and we were happy to see great progress in both areas.
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"With the addition of our first-year class, we were able to bring in some of the missing pieces to a highly-functioning corner unit," Dallmeyer continued. "Our insert became much faster with Mauri Ware, we added another corner distributer with Olivia Perrone, and we had a consistent finisher in Leah Mullery. Our stoppers were much more consistent than what they had been in the past and I attribute a lot of that to experience. Both Isabel McKeown and Amanda Boyer, in doing this for the last three years and becoming our two most reliable and seasoned playmakers, have developed confidence in themselves to be able to execute in big moments. When we struggled to score in live play, we began to rely heavily on our corner unit to produce, and they didn't disappoint."
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Havas also served a key role on the corner unit, breaking the school record for assists in a season (finishing with nine) and becoming just the fourth field hockey athlete in school history to earn All-Region recognition. In the end, Lehigh's corner unit scored on 18.7 percent of its attempts. More than 70 percent of the Mountain Hawks' goals this season came off corners (70.8 to be exact). For comparisons' sake, those numbers were 9.8 and 53.3 percent in 2017 and 7.1 percent and 25.0 percent the year prior.
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How good are Lehigh's numbers? Patriot League Champion Boston University converted on 12.0 percent of its corners in 2018 (compared to Lehigh's 18.7 percent). Dallmeyer hopes the Mountain Hawks' exceptional play in such an important part of the game is a sign of things to come.
ICYMI, first-year Sam Nason scored her first two career goals yesterday at LIU Brooklyn ?? Sam is now Lehigh's second rookie to post a multi-goal this season (also Leah Mullery at Villanova), marking the first time that has happened since 2004 ???????????? pic.twitter.com/GCV5q9zLDP
"Our game is broken down into so many different pieces," she said. "We have set plays. We have to be able to press effectively to cause turnovers and deny the opponents' buildup on attack. Then, we have our defensive outletting that needs to be on point in order to make sure we can give ourselves any chance of an attack. We have to make sure all those different set pieces are sound, because they go into the bigger picture of the game. We have been able to do that nicely with our corner unit."
 Big-Picture Approach
Having a big-picture approach isn't easy, but is necessary. The coaches and players aren't looking for success one year, only to fall backwards the following season. They are looking for sustainable success and they know they are part of something bigger than themselves.Â
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"Think of it like a construction crew," said Dallmeyer. "There are so many pieces to building any structure and the foundation is arguably the most important step, creating stability and strength before building upward, You can't put the roof on first. You have got to make sure you have everything else surrounding it for support. With every construction project, you always have a setback. Nothing goes perfectly smoothly, and you have to make sure that you're thinking about all those pieces along the way for minimal time lost in meeting your end goal. This year, we've been able to really focus on the small details so we're better equipped to handle the bigger challenges as they come."
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The players and coaches are focused on the building process, and the victories that come along the way.
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"It will be important to be patient and stay focused on the process," said Havas. "Our record might not show it yet, but the team has made great improvements on and off the field. It will be exciting to build on them this upcoming spring and have a big freshman class coming in next fall."
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"Having a first team All-Patriot League honoree and All-Region honoree in Lenke Havas shows that our team is working well as a unit, giving our players opportunities to be successful on the field," said Dallmeyer. "We are almost at full buy-in by all of our team members. We're at a tipping point and if we can remain focused this spring, stay committed to the process and continue taking ownership of our development as players and teammates, we will be poised for great success next year."
