Valley girls lead U19s to the silver

The Canadian Senior National field hockey championships in Calgary were quite an experience for four valley girls — in more ways than one.

First, Miranda Mann, Amber Thomas, Mary Nielsen and Crystal Poland played a major part in a superb silver-medal effort by the B.C. Under 19 team against the cream of the crop in the country.

Second, being among the core group for future placement on the Senior National team is a huge coup for the girls.

Mann, Poland and Nielsen were already on the national development squad. Thomas was added to the list after the tournament and the four will surely be prominent faces in the national program for many years to come.

Poland has graduated while Thomas and Mann still have to complete Grade 12 at Cowichan Secondary School and Nielsen Grade 12 at Brentwood College.

Robin D’Abreo of Vancouver, an assistant coach of the women’s national team, had the B.C. U19 girls in fine form for the tournament. This is the third year for him with the same core group and it paid huge dividends.

The B.C. U19s beat Ontario, Alberta 1, the University of Calgary Dinos, University of Alberta Pandas and Prince Edward Island. The only loss was against the B.C. 1 team that had nine national players in the starting lineup.

Poland finished with five goals and was named to the tournament 11. Mann and Thomas each scored three times, as the Cowichan girls led the scoring for the B.C. U19s.

“This is the highest they’ve ever done,’’ Les Mann, who was in Calgary to watch his daughter play, said of the U19 squad.

“They did very well. There wasn’t a weak player on that team. They were all integral parts of the team.’’

The Cowichan girls will be training in Vancouver most of the rest of the summer with either the national senior team or B.C. U19s. The U19 nationals are in Winnipeg at the end of July.