In less than a week, sophomore midfielder Becky Stiles will be headed to Guadalajara, Mexico.
No, she’s not going on spring break six months early. She, along with 17 other field hockey players from around the country, will be playing in the under-21 version of the Pan-American Games.
The top two finishers out of the 11 teams competing will earn the chance to compete in next summer’s Junior World Cup.
“It’s just crazy,” Stiles said. “It’s an amazing opportunity for me.”
Stiles, who originally is from Medford, N.J., started by participating in USA Field Hockey’s High Performance camp, which is held in various places across the country. Stiles decided to try out for the New Jersey regional camp and made it.
From there, players from the eight regional camps were selected to train at Junior National Camp, which was held this past July at the University of Massachusetts. Then the squad was narrowed down even further to a group that trained at the University of Maryland in August. The final team was selected from that pool of players.
Stiles is mostly excited for the opportunity to learn from her teammates and coaches.
“There are so many good people there,” Stiles said. “I’m going to learn so much.”
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