Young team concentrates on basics
By Daily Bruin Staff
Oct. 31, 2001 9:00 p.m.
 CHRIS BACKLEY/Daily Bruin Shawn
Nakamura, the field hockey coach, teaches the team
essential points in the sport.
By Michael Sneag
Daily Bruin Contributor
Gaining attention and notoriety can be a hard thing to do for a
club team at UCLA. Even getting practice time on a field at the
moment requires incredible diplomatic skills. For now, the UCLA
women’s field hockey team is quite content to focus on the
simple things. Rather than worrying about wins and loses, the
players are simply working on becoming a team and organizing
themselves into a unit that they can be proud of.
The team is full of energy and enthusiasm and much of it can be
attributed to the fact that the team recently acquired the talent
of a coach. Shawn Nakamura, a third-year transfer student recently
volunteered for coaching duties and has been a big boost for the
team. Nakamura has coaching experience in all levels of field
hockey ranging from youth leagues to a stint as an assistant for
the Berkeley team in 1999, a Division I program at the time.
“He has been perfect for us, and he is exactly what we
need,” junior captain Melissa Lorang said. “He has a
lot of experience. He is laid back enough to make us feel
comfortable while at the same time strict enough to make us work
and really help us improve our skills.”
Interest in the team has been high this year. The team has
existed for four years and has always fielded competitive teams,
but this year, with the help of Lorang and Nakamura, there is a
real feeling of cohesion and structure.
“Things are looking good,” Nakamura said. “We
are definitely improving. We have a good mix on the team with a lot
of girls returning from last year, some freshmen and even some
girls that have never played before, but the enthusiasm really is
there.”
The emphasis is on learning, improving and gaining experience as
a team. On a recent trip to Santa Barbara, the team went 1-2,
beating Cal Poly 1-0 behind a goal from Lorang, before losing two
very close games to Haverford and Santa Barbara. The team played
all three games with only 10 players and no substitutions, while
all three teams fielded a full 11 with multiple substitutions.
The team travels to to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo this weekend to
play in a three-team tournament. The following weekend, they will,
once again travel to Santa Barbara, where they will compete in the
fourth annual Santa Barbara Field Hockey Club Sports Championships,
a two-day affair on Nov. 10-11, which concludes the fall
season.
The team resumes play during the spring season, which starts in
March. The spring games are played on turf at Moorpark College as
opposed to grass, making it a much faster paced game, and giving
the Bruins a wider variety of teams to play against, something
useful for a team eager to learn and gain experience.
“So far the experience has been fun,” Nakamura said.
“The girls want to learn and have fun doing it and there is
not much more I can ask.”
Anybody interested in the team should contact Melissa Lorang at
[email protected] for more
information.
