Mia Stewart was contemplating her imminent future. \u201cI\u2019m currently undecided, but in college, I would like to pursue environmental studies,\u201d offered the 17-year-old senior, a captain on University City\u2019s field hockey squad. \u201cClimate change, biodiversity\u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cI took AP Environmental Science last year as a junior. I also took a course over the summer on oceans: sustainability, over-fishing, and pollution.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked what someone who knew her four years ago would say about her growth as a person, Stewart responded, \u201c(I\u2019ve grown in) taking people\u2019s opinions into consideration and coming to a conclusion.\u201d Pretty thoughtful for a response during an unexpected interview on the upper hockey field at UCHS on a Wednesday afternoon.<\/p>\n
Stewart, M.J. Andres, Samantha Sobka, and the rest of eight-year (most of that as head) coach Amber Zimmermann\u2019s minions are thriving within the hothouse that is Centurion field hockey, and its sister program, Myto, a club team that she and her predecessor Krista Jackson, her \u201cbest friend\u201d now coaching at La Jolla Country Day, run in the offseason.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s like a second family,\u201d says Andres, a senior forward. \u201cYou can take your problems to someone (on the team). We\u2019re very open. We\u2019re very encouraging (to one another).\u201d<\/p>\n
M.J. tells of a nerve-wracking tryout three years ago in front of Zimmermann that turned out well. \u201cIt\u2019s the first thing I tried out for where I had no prior experience. But Amber told me recently that back then she saw a lot of intensity, a lot of drive. She could tell that from how I went for the ball and kept trying.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Cents, at an early juncture, are 4-4-1 on the season, with Eastern League play yet ahead. UC has already recorded two overtime wins over Open Division or equivalent teams, Torrey Pines and San Marcos.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur coach likes to have us play good teams (in pre-league). That way we\u2019re killing it when league starts,\u201d says Alli Podhorsky, a sophomore right defender.<\/p>\n
Zimmermann says, regarding the stage of development of field hockey on the West Coast, that in the last six years they have begun to teach the girls a reverse hit. She had a player demonstrate it. The hitter, instead of swinging the stick out to her right, swings it to her left, lays it close to the ground, and whacks the ball with the back of the stick.<\/p>\n
Luca Della Monache, the father of team member Flavia and an assistant coach who played on the Italian national team, says field hockey is not played only by women in Europe. \u201cBut it\u2019s people like Amber who put in the time, not to get rich but because they love the sport, that keep so-called \u2018minor sports\u2019 like field hockey going.\u201d<\/p>\n
Samantha Sobka, another captain, senior, and left defender, is interested in taking law. \u201cI think social justice is important. I want to make the world a better place. Racial matters have been in the news a lot the last few years.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mia Stewart was contemplating her imminent future. \u201cI\u2019m currently undecided, but in college, I would like to pursue environmental studies,\u201d offered the 17-year-old senior, a captain on University City\u2019s field hockey squad. \u201cClimate change, biodiversity\u2026 \u201cI took AP Environmental Science last year as a junior. I also took a course over the summer on oceans: […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1484,"featured_media":315417,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11560","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"Mia Stewart was contemplating her imminent future. \u201cI\u2019m currently undecided, but in college, I would like to pursue environmental studies,\u201d offered the 17-year-old senior, a captain on University City\u2019s field hockey squad. \u201cClimate change, biodiversity\u2026","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"3","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"1","show_view_counter":"1","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"1","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","show_zoom_button":"1","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":"","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":""},"jnews_social_meta":{"fb_title":"","fb_description":"","fb_image":"","twitter_title":"","twitter_description":"","twitter_image":""},"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[11560,11553],"tags":[14203,14204,13522],"class_list":["post-315415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-la-jolla-village-news","category-sports","tag-centurions","tag-field-hockey","tag-university-city"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1484"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315415\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/315417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}