April 10, 2006
COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO. - USA Field Hockey has announced its 18-member team for the World Cup Qualifying Tournament, April 25- May 6 in Rome, Italy, which includes three former Lady Monarchs, Tiffany Snow, Angie Loy, and Melissa Leonetti.
Tiffany Snow ('03) has been a member of the national squad since 2003 and helped the U.S to a sixth place finish at the 2004 Olympic Qualifying Tournament. She led the national team in scoring during 2005 series with New Zealand and Australia with five goals in 2005 and also appeared in the Champions Challenge. Snow culminated a great career at Old Dominion by winning the Honda Award as the nation's most outstanding field hockey player in the fall of 2002 and as a senior tied for second in the nation in points, second in the nation in goals scored, and 11th in Division I play in assists. She was named First Team All-American and First Team All-South Region for two straight years and was the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) Player of the Year and the CAA Tournament's Most Valuable Player in 2002. Her name is still found in the record books ranking seventh on the Old Dominion all-time goals leader list with 71 career goals and seventh on the all-time points leaders list with 182. Entering World Cup qualifying compeition, Snow has appeared in 25 international games, tallying nine goals.
Completing her collegiate career at Old Dominion in 2003, Loy earned All-America first team honors for two straight seasons and was named the 2003 Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) Player of the Year, 2003 CAA Tournament Most Outstanding Player, and the 2000 CAA Rookie of the Year. Additionally, she is one of a handful of Lady Monarch field hockey student-athletes to have earned National Academic Squad honors from the National Field Hockey Coaches' Association for four straight seasons. She scored 77 career goals at ODU to rank fifth all-time, made 56 assists to rank ninth all-time, and accumulated a total of 210 career points to rank fourth all-time at ODU. Loy has been apart of the national team since 2003 participating in the 2004 Olympic Qualifying Tournament, the 2004 Pan American Cup, and 2005 Champions Challege. To date she has scored 15 international goals in 44 career appearances.
A former fiery leader of the Old Dominion defense, Leonetti's ('03) career as a Lady Monarch included two All-America honors and the distinction of being named the 2003 Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) Defensive Player of the Year. For her career, Leonetti amassed 14 goals, 38 assists, and 66 points and was a two-time First Team All-CAA selection, a two-time First Team All-South Region pick, and was a three-time member of the National Field Hockey Coaches' Association Academic Honor Roll. In the backfield she helped the Lady Monarchs to 35 shutouts. She has been a member of the US National Team since 2003 and participated at the 2004 Pan American Cup and 2005 Champions Challenge. Leonetti has appeared in 29 international games.
The top five teams at the 10-team qualifying tournament will join Argentina, Australia, Germany, India, The Netherlands, South Africa and host Spain at the Women's World Cup, Sept. 27-Oct. 7 in Madrid."The team has made a lot of progress since coming together in New Zealand (in a 2005 test series)," said USA head coach Lee Bodimeade. "It's now a matter of building on those improvements so we can consistently beat the nations that we come up against and enable us to qualify for the World Cup."
Currently 12th in the world rankings, the USA enters the qualifier as the No. 6 seed behind top-seed China, No. 2 New Zealand, No. 3, No. 4 Japan and No. 5 England. The USA will open play against Ireland on April 25 and will compete in a Pool B field that also includes New Zealand, Korea, Azerbaijan and host Italy.
The USA will leave for the qualifier on April 17 with a stop over in The Netherlands for some training games against the club team Klein Zwitzerland and the Dutch U23 squad before continuing on to Rome.The USA has appeared in the World Cup in each of the last six editions of the quadrennial event dating back to 1983.