Story Links
June 25, 2003
The USA women’s field hockey team swept Jamaica in a four-game test series held this past weekend at Virginia Beach at the US Field Hockey National Training Center. After the USA Under-23 team started the weekend with a 4-2 defeat of the Jamaicans, the senior national team took three games from the visitors, outscoring them 22-1, with six goals coming off the stick of Coleman.
The two countries were using the series as a tune-up for the Pan Am Games, scheduled for Aug 2-13 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. The winner of the Pan Ams receives the continent’s automatic berth in the 2004 Olympic Games. In that tournament, the USA and Jamaica will compete in Pool B along with Canada and Uruguay. In Pool A, defending Pan Am and world champion Argentina will compete with Chile, Trinidad and Tobago, and the host Dominican Republic.
The U23s took a 2-0 lead over the Jamaicans behind a pair of penalty corner goals in the first 22 minutes of play, with Coleman notching the second score. Jamaica pulled within one at the 43 minute-mark, but five minutes later the USA pushed the margin back to two. The teams traded goals in the final 14 minutes of play for the final score of 4-2.
In the opener between the two senior teams, after the USA’s Kelli Gannon scored on a short corner five minutes into the match, three other Americans notched a pair of goals each to power the Stars and Strips past the visitors, with Coleman netting the other goal on a short corner just after halftime.
In the second match, Coleman gave the USA a lead they would not relinquish with a conversion of a short corner in the 6th minute for a 1-0 lead. After a stroke put the USA up 2-0, the Jamaicans scored what would prove to be their only goal of the senior series to pull within 2-1, but a goal just before halftime put the USA up 3-1 at the break. The American side then scored five unanswered goals, including a second by Coleman, to close out the game with an 8-1 score.
Coleman scored her only field goal of the tournament by blasting a Tara Jelley pass to the back of the cage in the 45th minute of the third game, putting the USA up 3-0. She then connected on two drag flicks off the short corner in the final ten minutes, giving the Americans a 6-0 win in the final game of the series and a hat trick in the international.
Coleman graduated from Virginia ranked sixth in career scoring with 133 points (58g, 17a) and had four hat tricks in her career as a Cavalier. She earned All-American honors twice (1999, 2001).