For Iona Holloway, these past two weeks have been a telling time for the Syracuse field hockey team.

Four starters from the beginning of the season were left home from a road trip to Albany Oct. 10 and have slowly made their way back onto the field. But in their absence, an internal search began.

SU also struggled to find a leader last year, with only two seniors on the squad.

‘Last year we didn’t have a leader as such, and this year we are on the hunt for one. I think people are really stepping up over the last couple of weeks, and that’s really big for us,’ said Holloway, a sophomore back.

One player Holloway is quick to mention who has stepped up for the team in the role is junior midfield Nicole Nelson. For a team that has had its ups and downs this year, Nelson has seen playing time in every game of the season and is described by head coach Ange Bradley as one of the most consistent players on the team.

But to Holloway, it’s not just Nelson’s reliability that makes her an easy candidate for the role of leader. It’s the fact that Nelson has not only stepped up her game this season, but the performance of others. She has become one of the more vocal players on the team and provided on-field guidance for a team searching for direction.

‘Nicole has always been a vocal player, but I think this year she has really had to step up,’ Holloway said. ‘Especially this year, she is playing more of a central role. Last year I think she was more of a left back. It’s more significant, her communicating, because it’s a more pivotal position on the field. She speaks more now than she did, but I’ve always heard her.’

For Nelson, it wasn’t always certain what her role on the team would be. As a freshman, she came in and got some playing time at forward early on, but was then forced to play left back when one of the older players went down with an injury.

Before she even knew it, Nelson was starting in a final four matchup against then-No. 2 Wake Forest. SU director of player development Guy Cathro remembers Nelson stepping up in those games and how composed the freshman seemed going against the best of the best.

Two years later, Cathro isn’t surprised by the fact that Nelson has developed into one of the steadiest players on the team. Her contributions may not be immediately visible on the stat sheet — Nelson has only one goal on the year and no assists — but Cathro can see the growth.

‘She is doing very well at stepping up,’ Cathro said. ‘She understands the game well. She reads the game phenomenally well, and she is very confident in controlling the players around her, and she knows what she wants people to do.’

Nelson’s role as communicator became even more important when second team All-American Amy Kee went down with a knee injury and struggled with what Bradley called inconsistent play. Kee missed a total of four games with the injury and has come off the bench in a total of seven games so far this year.

Kee, the team’s second-leading scorer from a year ago, has since started the past three games and is back to her form of last year. But in her absence, it was Nelson who filled the void. For Nelson, it wasn’t hard to adjust to being more vocal. It was simply second nature.

‘I naturally talk a lot,’ Nelson said with a laugh. ‘So I guess on the field it just comes out.’

With Nelson’s emergence and Kee’s return, the team has taken on a new form. Senior back Maggie Befort has gone from playing back at the start of the year to playing forward — a position she played as a freshman when she registered 35 points. Since the change, the Orange defense has given up only four goals in five games — and even held Georgetown without a shot during that stretch.

For Bradley, Nelson is a player who she can trust and a player who she knows can take care of the team. When asked if Nelson is a player she considers to be one of the leaders on her team, Bradley responded without hesitation.

Said Bradley: ‘Absolutely.’

rwmarfur@syr.edu

 

Published on October 26, 2010 at 12:00 pm