This week, I sat down with field hockey player Maggie Scanlon '14, who was recently named the Northeast Credit Union athlete of the week for her performances against Brown University, the College of the Holy Cross and Bryant University. In the team's three games, Scanlon had two game-winning goals and helped the team post a 2-1 record.
How did it feel to be recognized last week as Northeast Credit Union Athlete of the Week?
MS: It was really great. It was at a good time in our season too where we were down a little bit from a couple losses and then had a good weekend.
You've already set a new career-high for goals in a season. What's been enabling you to be so successful this year?
MS: I think it's a lot more confidence, and things have just been working a lot better than usual.
Did you do any specific training over the summer that has really helped you this year?
MS: We've focused in on a lot of things, like shooting and different positional things, so all of that definitely helped.
What do you think has been the best part of being a senior on the team so far?
MS: It doesn't actually seem that different than other years, but then I realize, Oh wait, we're the seniors.' It's good being the leaders and being a part of picking and organizing things more than as an underclassman, like team activities.
Has the team done any fun team bonding things this year?
MS: We had poster decorating, we've done meals and stuff like that. We did The Program in the spring, and then we did a thing in the woods this preseason. We were in the woods for almost eight hours carrying sand bags [through DP2 Leadership]. We ended up getting back at 12:30 at night. Our coach just told us all to go to EBAs after that. And we also had our California trip, so that was a lot of team bonding as well.
Do you guys get to do a trip like that every year or was that something special?
MS: It was just something special. It's kind of been planned because Olivia [Quaglia '14], who is also a senior, is from there and it was something her family had been pushing for all four years and we were finally able to do it.
Did you guys do anything special while you were in California besides playing?
MS: We got a tour of Facebook and went to a Giants game in San Francisco.
What's your favorite part about being a Dartmouth athlete?
MS: I just love being able to compete and play for Dartmouth. I don't know what I would do without it, especially because all through high school I played a lot of sports.
Do you have any plans for things you want to do the next two terms once field hockey is over?
MS: I keep being like, "Oh I need to do this!" I've never skated on Occom Pond, never skied the Skiway. I want to join club lacrosse or be on an intramural hockey team.
The team has had some ups and downs this season. What has the team mainly been focusing on?
MS: I think a lot of it is just trying to get better consistency, which we have at times, and being able to do well and play off of that without getting down too easily.
What are your predictions for the rest of your season?
MS: Hopefully, just winning a lot more of the games we have left. Definitely all the Ivies we have left we should win. We've already played Princeton, Brown and Penn. Princeton's very good, they won the national championship last year so they beat us. We beat Brown and then lost to Penn in overtime.