The Spartans will kick off the 2015 season at Central Michigan on Saturday, Aug. 29 before returning home to face Delaware at Ralph Young Field on Sunday, Aug. 30, according to the statement.

What are some of your recruiting hotspots?

“Well, within the state there is not a ton of field hockey. I mean there is the Ann Arbor area and Detroit Area, but once you get up this way there is not much. So if you look at our roster we are predominantly Pennsylvania, New Jersey and we’ve got kind of a pipeline of kids from Louisville, which is a random city to have a few young players from, but they’ve got a great club system and good high school system. We like to try to recruit within the region from the Midwest so we’ve got some Ohio girls in the roster and then obviously some international players: Canada, Scotland, New Zealand and Ireland, so a little bit of everywhere.”

What are some field hockey terminologies and rules?

“Imagine soccer because it is 11 versus 11, but there is no offsides so you can play like a cherry picker forward if you want. The ball is hard plastic with a cork middle inside, so it is really hard if you get hit. You don’t want to get hit by one. Only the keepers wear pads. The sticks are flat on one side and rounded on the other, so if you want to use the other side of the stick you have to turn it over. In ice hockey you can play right or left handed, but in field hockey you can only play one way. So your left hand is top of your stick and does all of the work and your right hand is to guide it, so it is a little bit different. It is a non-contact sport, I mean there is physical contact, but there is not checking like in lacrosse. Predominately played on the ground, but you can play ariel balls, which is a skill, but it is a game that the ball is played on the ground. The size of the field is like a football field, you just take away the end zones.”

What is the leadership like on this team?

“Coming back this year we graduated a pretty large senior class this past year. We have two fifth-year seniors back, Heather Howie and Claire Johnson, that have a ton of experience. And really, you know, they are players that can help guide in that fifth-year role. We had 17 returners in the spring, so a pretty large returning group with six freshman. We had a great spring season where we saw a ton of growth from January to April and actually is where the foundation is of our program. Coming into the preseason we have the six freshman and we want them to help boost the level and pick up on the system, but I really rely on my returners to be the ones to pick up the pace. Sierra Patton is returning as our goalkeeper and she will be a redshirt junior. She had great leadership and mentor Molly Cassidy, who was a goalkeeper before her. Sierra played all year last year, as her first season, so I kind of expect her to step up this year. Simone Vagnoni will be in the backfield and anchored our defense last year. We are really strong through the midfield with Heather Howie, Adrea Donaldson and Kendal Anderson. Kendal played High Performance over the summer, which is like US pipeline. I expect big things from her. Kristin Matula is returning and has played with us since her freshman year. She scored the game winner in the Elite Eight for us. She is a solid player for us. We are returning a core group and we’ve got a lot of other players, I expect they are going to step up and fill their role and in only two days of preseason I have already seen them stepping up. So I am excited to see where we are going to go.”