Date: Fri 29-Nov-1996

Publication: Bee

Author: KIMH

Quick Words:

Wickson-All-State-Field-Hockey

Full Text:

Alicia Wickson - NHS All-State Field Hockey Player

B Y K IM J. H ARMON

Back when she was a sophomore, Alicia Wickson had a plan . . . not so bold a

plan, but a plan that would require a lot of hard work, a good deal of

persistence, and a fair bit of determination to pull it off.

And, oh yes, talent. But just over a year into her field hockey career at

Newtown High School, it was clear that Alicia Wickson had the talent. All she

needed was some place to focus it.

Therein lay the plan - the plan, or idea, that she wanted to play field hockey

in college.

And even though college is still 10 months away, the work Alicia put in to

achieve her goal - from the skills camps and Futures camps to West Region

Nutmeg team - has already started paying dividends . . . dividends in the way

of an All-SWC (South-West Conference) selection and the first-ever first team

All-State selection in Newtown High School history.

"My sophomore and junior year I made All-Briggs and All-Colonial," said

Alicia, who is spending this week in Florida participating with the 1997 West

Region Nutmeg team in the International Hockey Fest in front of better than 60

college coaches and recruiters, "so I hoped I would at least get an All-SWC

award, but All-State was a real surprise for me."

But it shouldn't be a surprise, considering how hard Alicia worked to get

where she is. It helped, of course, that she had the talent to play the sport.

As a freshman, her first year in the sport, Alicia started playing with the

freshmen and then was quickly moved up to junior varsity. After about four

games, she moved up to varsity and ever since her sophomore year she has been

a starting varsity player.

In 1994, she was named to the All-Briggs Division team in the now defunct

Western Connecticut Conference.

In 1995, she was named to the All-Colonial Division team in the South-West

Conference.

It was during her sophomore year, in 1994, that she began thinking more

seriously about field hockey and decided, then, that she wanted to play in

college. She told her coach, Lisa Poirier, about her plan and coach Poirier

started getting Alicia involved in a lot of different things towards that end.

"She took me to my tryouts," said Alicia. "She was with me through all of it,

so, I have to thank her for that because if it weren't for her I wouldn't have

gotten involved in half the things I did."

It started with an Elite field hockey camp the summer following her sophomore

year.

"It was really hard," she said, "but it was a good experience. I saw girls

there who were amazing and after seeing that I was, like, wow, I want to be

like that."

She tried out for her first Futures Team (a team for elite or advance players,

with strong coaching) as a sophomore and played on it as a junior from January

to June of 1996. That campaign ended with a regional tournament at the

University of Connecticut in Storrs.

Also as a junior, Alicia tried out for the West Region Nutmeg team and played

in a summer league in Avon on Tuesday nights . . . mandatory for Nutmeg team

members.

And it is because of her participation on the Nutmeg team - which won a Bronze

medal in the Nutmeg Games - that she is at the nearly week-long International

Hockey Fest in Florida. The Fest is a big showcase for seniors as 64 college

coaches and recruiters will be there to watch and talk with the athletes.

It is such a nice situation that Alicia finds herself in right now and she

looks back to that early part of her career and credits teammates like Brooke

Stiewing and Melissa Araya, Sara Patrick and Mary Kate Schneider, for making

the game seem fun.

"It was real fun and the girls were so nice," said Alicia. "Field hockey was

the first thing I ever really excelled at, where I got recognized, and that

made it even better. After that, I just loved it."

Loved it, in spite of the team struggling each year for some respect and some

respectability.

"This season," Alicia said, "I realized most that, it's not always the best

people or the team that has the best girls who win, it's the team with the

best attitude. This year I felt there were some girls who just didn't want to

play, like they were sick of losing. I never felt that before."

About halfway through the 1996 season, with Alicia and Liz Glaser, the

co-captains, and the other seniors, the rest of the team began realizing how

important it was to have a good attitude and the Lady Nighthawks came real

close to qualifying for the CIAC state tournament.

"This would have been the year," said Alicia, "to make the state tournament

because we had strong players on the forward line and the midfield line and

the defensive line. We're graduating 11 seniors, but there still are some

strong players coming back."

And in the meantime, Alicia will be heading off to college - Western New

England, if she had her druthers, where she would play Division III field

hockey and study to become a social worker. She also has interest in Hartwick

and Southern Connecticut State University.

Alicia said the last thing she wanted to accomplish in high school was to be

named All-State - but she has quite a bit more to accomplish now . . . in the

off-season and on into college.