COCALICO GRAD DANA SENSENIG IS IN LINE TO PLAY FOR THE U.S. WOMEN’S FIELD HOCKEY TEAM LATER THIS SUMMER IN THE OLYMPIC GAMES IN CHINA 

Our sports editor, Keith Schweigert, put together an awesome piece on Cocalico grad Dana Sensenig, who is thisclose to qualifying for the U.S. Women’s Field Hockey Team, which will compete in the Olympics later this summer in China. Here’s Keith’s feature from Wednesday’s New Era:

She stands just a step away from the pinnacle of her sport, but Dana Sensenig remains as humble as ever.

The 2003 Cocalico grad is a member of the U.S. Women’s Field Hockey Team. Two weekends ago, she helped the team earn a berth in the 2008 Summer Olympic Games by winning a qualifying tournament in Kazan, Russia.

It’s the first time the U.S team has qualified since 1996, when it earned an automatic bid as the host nation. The Games were held in Atlanta that year.

USA’s best showing came in 1984, when the team took the bronze medal.

Though the final roster for this year’s Games won’t be set until next month — when the 24-member squad will be pared to 16 for the trip to Beijing, China — Sensenig seems like a shoo-in to make the cut.

A reserve midfielder on the U.S. squad, she scored two goals in the qualifying tournament — including the decisive goal in a 3-1 semifinal victory over Netherlands-Antilles.

But Sensenig isn’t assuming anything. She doesn’t want to tempt fate by acting like her spot on the final roster is secure.

“I don’t want to get overconfident,” she said this week, while relaxing in the dining room of her family home outside Denver. “I like to think there’s a chance that I won’t get on the team, so I don’t lose my perspective.”

When pushed, Sensenig admits that if she stays healthy and continues to play at the level she has been since joining the team last year, she should be fine.

“As long as I don’t suffer some kind of complete mental and physical meltdown, I think I have a good chance,” she said with a smile.

Sensenig views her ascension through the field hockey ranks with a mixture of amazement and amusement. While most of her U.S. teammates have been chasing their field hockey dreams since they were in junior high, Sensenig’s path was much less direct.

In junior high and high school, her first love was always basketball.

“I don’t want to say I stumbled into this, because that would diminish the work I’ve done to get where I am,” she said, “but it definitely took some intervention to get me here.”

It wasn’t until the summer before her senior year at Cocalico that Sensenig even realized she might have a future in field hockey.

“I always thought I’d play basketball in college,” Sensenig recalled. “In fact, I was close to giving a verbal commitment to play at Messiah. It was my mom who kept pushing me to send out a few letters to field hockey schools, just to keep my doors open.

“Then, in the summer before my senior year, (Cocalico field hockey coach) Krista Page took me to Old Dominion for a camp.”

It was there that Sensenig caught the eye of ODU coach Beth Anders when she played in a game one day after having a tooth knocked out by a high stick.

Anders is a legendary field hockey coach at ODU, where she has led the Monarchs to nine national championships and 492 career victories since 1973.

Impressed by Sensenig’s grit, Anders began chatting with Page to gauge Sensenig’s interest in playing in college.

Sensenig couldn’t believe a Division I school was interested in her for field hockey. And ODU was one of the nation’s powerhouse programs under Anders, the nation’s winningest Division I coach.

Anders invited Sensenig to ODU for an official visit, and offered her a scholarship on the spot.

Sensenig quickly accepted, and the rest is history.

Sensenig was a sensation in her four years at ODU, where she played in 88 of 93 games. She led the Colonial Athletic Association in points in her sophomore and junior seasons and was a three-time All-American.

It was during her freshman season at ODU that Sensenig was first exposed to the U.S. National Team, which was coached by Anders at the time.

Sensenig played for the junior national squad as a freshman and sophomore, but decided to stop participating after that.

“I didn’t think it was right that it was interfering with my college schedule,” she explained. “Old Dominion was paying for me to go there, and I felt my loyalty should have stayed with them.”

But when Sensenig’s senior season was over, U.S. National Team coach Lee Bodimeade approached her about trying out again for the team.
She went to a team camp in California to compete for a spot, and impressed Bodimeade enough for him to offer her a roster spot by the time the camp ended.

“That was one of the happiest days of my life,” she said.

Sensenig shares time with starting midfielders Carrie Lingo and Lauren Powley.

“I basically split time with one of the starters every game — she plays one half, I play the other,” Sensenig said. “It’s my job to give the team a spark when I’m out there.”

Since joining the team, Sensenig has earned 42 international caps, or games played. She’s participated in eight international tournaments, including the 2007 Pan-Am Games, where the U.S. team finished second behind Argentina.

By contrast, Lingo and Powley have a combined 216 caps.

“Our midfielders are among the most experienced players on our roster, so I’m just happy to be out there with them,” Sensenig said.

Sensenig and her teammates live together and train at the U.S. team’s training facility outside San Diego, Calif. They receive a monthy stipend from the U.S. Olympic Committee that pays for everyday expenses, but Sensenig says no one gets rich playing field hockey.

“But that’s not what we’re there for,” she said. “We’re not professional athletes. That’s what the Olympic ideal is supposed to be about — amateur athletes representing their country. It’s an honor to be there.”

Sensenig, who has been spending a few days at home following the qualifying tournament in Russia, will return to the U.S. Training Facility on Sunday.

She’ll spend the next six weeks training with the team before playing in the selection tournament on June 21.

Assuming she makes the team, she’ll head to Europe to play a handful of friendly matches against Germany and Holland, then will be back in California making her final preperations for Beijing.

The team leaves for China on August 2.

“It’s going to be overwhelming,” Sensenig said. “I think the true magnitude of all this will hit me at the Opening Ceremonies. I can’t wait to get there.”