Lempers Sees Persistence Rewarded After Rough Start

By Jeff White (jwhite@virginia.edu)
VirginiaSports.com

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. —  Along with excitement, Nilou Lempers felt some apprehension when she came to the United States in 2023, but the Amsterdam native had a backup plan. Lempers told herself that, if she wasn’t happy in her new surroundings, she could always buy a plane ticket and fly home to the Netherlands.

The transition proved more challenging than Lempers expected. As a first-year in the University of Virginia field hockey program, she played in only two games, and she was reluctant to speak English with her teammates, knowing she was likely to make mistakes.

“In my first year, I was so lost,” Lempers recalled. “I was learning the language, making new friends, trying to fit in the team, so my performances weren't all my best.”

Lempers doesn’t give up easily, however, and she never seriously considered heading home.

“It was tough. It was hard,” she said. “But I also believe if I start something, then I want to finish it. And I also believe in your first year, you're so [busy] trying to figure things out and trying to solve them that you cannot actually experience things how you wanted to experience things.

“So I was like, ‘I have to do another year, because now I know the drill. Now I know what to expect. So now I'm going to see if I actually can like it.’ ”

Lempers smiled. “And then I loved it. It's not even like I like it. I love it.”

Her fourth college season begins Friday in State College, Pa. At 4 p.m., No. 5 Virginia takes on Penn State, and Lempers will be in her customary place for the Wahoos. She’s coming off a season in which she ranked second nationally in save percentage (.800) and was named ACC Goalkeeper of the Year.

“She’s a game-day competitor,” UVA head coach Ole Keusgen said. “She can have a bad warmup, she can have a bad practice week, and the moment she steps on the field, she finds a different gear, a different focus, and just makes saves. We look at each other on the sideline like, ‘Whoa, how did that happen? How did that not go in?’ ”

Lempers was 11 years old, she said, when she first played goalie in Amsterdam. That’s been her position ever since.

“I do love to be the last line on the field, to be very important for the team,” she said. “There's nobody that can [erase] your mistakes anymore. You can save the team, let's say it that way.”

🗣️ GAME WEEK#GoHoos pic.twitter.com/vULa66k7qF

— Virginia Field Hockey (@UVAFieldHockey) August 24, 2026

Keusgen was Virginia’s associate head coach when Lempers arrived on Grounds in the summer of 2023. The team had already begun practicing by then, and the first week for any new student at UVA can be challenging, Keusgen noted. For a foreign student, there are even more hurdles to clear.

“So you never know how players transition in those in those moments,” he said. “She always had a great attitude about it, but her first year was overwhelming, with how much new stuff was going on. The American hockey is a lot different than the Dutch—not that it's better, but it's different—and I think that maybe confused her a little, and instead of just trusting the instincts she feels as a goalie, [Lempers tried] fitting into whatever the U.S. system is.”

In 2023, Lempers backed up Tyler Kennedy, who made the All-ACC second team that season. Kennedy began the 2024 season as the starter, but Lempers eventually supplanted her.

Lempers started both of the Cavaliers’ NCAA tournament games in 2024.

“Nilou kept pushing, got more comfortable, had very good practices,” Keusgen said. “We made the transition at the end of the season and at that point never really looked back. Nilou is one thing. She's a game-day competitor. So that's what we found out in those moments.”

The more time Lempers spent on Grounds and in the field hockey program, the more comfortable she grew. She was fluent in Dutch when she arrived in 2023 and also spoke some German, but she lacked confidence in her English.

“I was very quiet in my first year,” Lempers said, “and I just tried to listen. I was also scared to sometimes make mistakes. And now my team laughs if I make an English mistake and I laugh about it and they will help correcting me.”

Keusgen, who’s from Germany, became the program’s head coach in November 2023, and Lempers has thrived under his leadership.

“I feel like he helped a lot,” Lempers said. “Technically, he knows exactly what we need to do and what the team needs, and I also think he's a good coach because he notices every detail.

“Even if you step on the field with new earrings or stuff like that, he will notice that. And I think that makes him a very good coach, because sometimes you don't even know if something is wrong, but he notices it, and he will come up to you and ask, ‘Hey, is everything OK?’ ”

Lempers is one of the Cavaliers’ captains this season, along with Mia Abello and Emma Watchilla. To see Lempers today and then reflect on how she carried herself as a first-year, Keusgen said, “It’s night and day. She's a great team captain, great leader, addresses the team very well. That would have been unthinkable her first year, because English was relatively challenging for her, and it’s hard, especially when you want to send an emotional message. You have to translate it, and it’s always awkward. So that just takes you a good year, probably, to be able to think fast in those heated moments.

“As a leader, she went from first year pretty much just swimming, to second year being like, ‘OK, I’m finding my space in our team and also a person, as a character in our group,’ to then third year absolutely dominating.”

Lempers, who goes home to Amsterdam twice a year, said her family encouraged her to study and play in the U.S. Her mother lived in Spain and England for a couple of years when she was younger, “and she said, ‘I had my best years living abroad, so just go for it,’ ” Lempers recalled.

College sports in the U.S. are unlike anything Lempers experienced in the Netherlands. Until she joined the program at UVA, she didn’t fully appreciate how “everything is so much bigger and professional here. Even the locker room here is unbelievable.”

Field hockey was among the UVA programs that moved from the Training Grounds to the Harrison Family Olympic Sports Center last year, and Lempers still marvels at the facility.

“Every time I walk in here I’m like, ‘Wow, this is like my second home,’ ” she said, smiling. “In the Netherlands you just have your little locker room, and you can be happy with a little bench in the locker room.”

At UVA, student-athletes’ many resources include strength and conditioning coaches, athletic trainers, nutritionists and academic advisors—“all those people that try to help you to get better on and off the field,” Lempers said.

A psychology major, Lempers lives in apartment building that also houses most members of the field hockey team, including her roommates Ria Chhina, Watchilla and Abello.

“So it’s very fun,” Lempers said. “You can just open your door and you're in somebody else's apartment, and I just hang out with everybody.”

She spends a lot of time in the Harrison Center, but “I do believe that it's good for your mind to have other stuff going on than just only field hockey,” Lempers said, “so I love to be in the classroom and learn about psychology and try to make new friends as well in the classroom, to just focus on other things.”

Lempers had planned to return to the Netherlands next year to pursue a master’s degree while continuing to play field hockey. Now that the NCAA has implemented its five-for-five rule, however, she might have the option of competing for Virginia again in 2027.

“So we really have to think about that,” Lempers said.

Her immediate focus is the season that starts Friday. Lempers, one of three UVA players named to the preseason All-ACC team, along with Abello and Mary Adams, likes the Cavaliers’ mix of youth and experience. So does Keusgen, who guided Virginia to a 16-3 record in 2025.

“I think what we have going for ourselves is that our first-years are pushing, just like the players that are second-years now did last year,” Keusgen said. “So I think that is fantastic, just raising the intensity. We have a lot of substitutes for every position, so we can roll subs, and I think that in many games will set us apart.”

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