LA JOLLA \u2013 La Jolla Country Day coach Krista Jackson has two midfielders\/defenders who look the same on the outside as they return for their sophomore years in field hockey, but a service project in Jamaica in early August grew them and stretched them on the inside.<\/p>\n
Sophomores Lily Witt and Harper Tilley, young leaders on a young team, traveled to a remote area in the Caribbean country and taught kids stick skills in their sport in between times making arts and crafts.<\/p>\n
The duo accompanied former Torrey teammate Anna Lyn, who is Jamaican and who played on the LJCDS squad last year, for three days of interaction and mentoring with the children of a humble area.<\/p>\n
What \u201cWitt\u201d (as teammates call her) and Tilley took away was probably more impactful than anything they helped the local children do. \u201cTo see how their lives were different really stayed with me,\u201d Tilley shared recently during a break in the weight room on a recent afternoon at practice.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe learned not to take things for granted,\u201d chimed in Witt. \u201cWe\u2019re really grateful.\u201d<\/p>\n
The kids in Jamaica had never heard of field hockey, so Lyn, Tilley, Witt, and her sister Kaylyn, and Dora Zhong, a classmate, concentrated on introducing them to the sport, and taught them about safety with the stick \u2014 how not to swing it up in the air and whack somebody in the head, Tilley says.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m half-Chinese, and Dora is full Chinese. Some of the others were really shocked at the conditions in that region of Jamaica,\u201d related Witt about the culture shock they went through. \u201cWe\u2019re thinking of a fundraiser. We really want to give back to that community, like supporting education in some way,\u201d Witt said earnestly.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the fall field hockey season starts, and Jackson, in her ninth year as head coach, said: \u201cWe\u2019re young. We only have 22 players, so we don\u2019t split into two teams.\u201d Witt and Tilley are two of several sophomores who populate the Torreys\u2019 roster.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn a preseason scrimmage, we played well against San Pasqual. We lost, but I\u2019m proud of how we played,\u201d said Witt, who in an interview doesn\u2019t hesitate to be quite loquacious.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we\u2019re under pressure, we can make our passes,\u201d says Tilley. One of the hardest things to do in field hockey is \u201ctrying to make a shot really fast, or lifting the ball to try to put it in the upper corner of the goal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tilley does double-duty in gymnastics on Tuesdays and Thursdays during the season. Jackson holds practice on those days in the mornings, from 7 to 8:10 a.m.<\/p>\n
Witt, differentiated from Lillia Howe, a teammate, is the relationship glue who \u201csends messages to the other girls about things they can do together\u201d outside of school and practice.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur goalie, Mikayla Shane\u2014she\u2019s good,\u201d asserted Witt.<\/p>\n
READ NEXT\n\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LA JOLLA \u2013 La Jolla Country Day coach Krista Jackson has two midfielders\/defenders who look the same on…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":211197,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,115732,115733,3549,7264,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-211196","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-field-hockey","12":"tag-la-jolla-country-day","13":"tag-san-diego","14":"tag-sandiego","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-united-states-of-america","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115170961645266295","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211196\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/211197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}