The Spire

Aiden Konold ‘26

Chief Sports Editor

After a three-point weekend via September 5 and September 7 games against Providence and Northeastern respectively, the Holy Cross Field Hockey Team’s junior midfielder and defender Saskia Williams earned Patriot League Midfielder of the Week honors. 

Williams played in 83 minutes as a midfielder across those two games, assisting a Maguire Sturgis goal in the Providence game and scoring herself early in the first quarter of the Northeastern game. 

At a practice shortly after the Patriot League awarded Williams with the honor, her coach, Lindsay Jackson walked by her and said, “Alright, midfielder of the week!” 

“You know, I was surprised,” Williams replied. 

But for those around Williams, her latest accomplishment is no surprise. Her winding journey has forced her to constantly adapt, whether it be moving and adjusting to living in a different country, learning a different style of field hockey, or spending time outside of practice to develop her signature drag flick shot, which gives her a competitive edge over her opponents. 

Starting at a young age, Williams enjoyed the process of trying to understand something new and putting in the work necessary to succeed at that thing. In Norwich, England, where Williams grew up, field hockey was a required part of the curriculum at the schools she attended. 

“It was a really social sport [in England]. Everyone played – boys, girls, even teachers,” Williams said. “At my high school, everyone would come out to watch the games, and it was always a great atmosphere. Because of the club system in England, adults play too.” 

From the moment she started playing field hockey, Williams loved everything about it. She loved her first stick, a bright pink wooden one she bought from her school’s second hand shop. She loved the bus rides to practices and games when she and her teammates loaded equipment bags larger than themselves onto the bus and sang songs together. 

Williams admits now that when she first started playing the sport, she was not very good. She failed to make the “A” teams, her school’s top teams, but she stuck with the sport because she enjoyed playing it so much. 

Outside of team-mandated practices and games, Saskia worked on improving her game with her brother. To this day, Saskia and her brother play on the same summer league team every year. 

Williams gave cricket a try, but she much preferred the faster, more competitive pace of field hockey. At age 15, Williams grew interested in playing field hockey in the United States after seeing several older girls from her school do so. She loved hearing about the girls’ experiences, and the improvements she made as a player opened up the possibility to play in the States. 

She prepared film of her highlights with her agent from Aspire USA, an agency that focuses on positioning talented athletes at U.S. universities. Williams’ agent invited coaches to visit her in England, and watch her play in recruiting tournaments. 

Throughout Williams’ recruiting process, Coach Jackson had great communication with Holly Cram, Aspire USA’s founder. 

“Holly knew, ‘Okay, here’s what Saskia is looking for in a school. Here’s what her strengths are, field hockey-wise,’ ” said Jackson. “And then she and I had a lot of that communication. So then that allowed the recruiting process with Saskia to go really well.” 

Though Williams briefly considered staying in England for school, as soon as she came to the States and visited Holy Cross’ campus, she was dead-set on coming here. 

“I really loved the work-hard culture, on and off the field,” Williams said. “The team was so welcoming on my visit, and the facilities and coaching staff were amazing. British universities just don’t have anything close to the facilities that Holy Cross has.” 

Holy Cross offered the perfect blend of community, academics, and an opportunity to compete on a high-level Division I field hockey team. 

“It’s the sense of community here on campus,” said Jackson. “And it’s because of those pieces of being men and women for and with others, and wanting to ask more questions and dive deeper that it is a transformational experience.” 

When Williams decided to commit to Holy Cross, her teammates immediately accepted her into their culture. 

“Everyone looks out for each other,” Williams said. “And I feel really lucky to be part of such a kind, loving group of girls.” 

Still, there was a bit of a culture shock for Williams both in terms of living over 4,000 miles from her family for the first time, and in terms of field hockey. More than the vast distance that separates Williams from her family, she cannot even call her parents or friends whenever she wants because of the six-hour time difference between British Summer Time (BST) and Eastern Standard Time (EST). 

On the field, Williams noticed a style of play difference between the field hockey played in England and that played in the United States. The field hockey in England focuses on continual passes and working the ball around the field, while American field hockey players always want to move the ball forward with less regard for tactical back-and-forth passes. 

“Just seeing her being able to bring her own style of play to what we use in the U.S. and adapting to that,” said senior captain Julia Carrozza, “not losing her own but bringing what she had learned in England to Holy Cross, and kind of finding it in between, and how we can make that work as a whole team too, was really awesome.” 

As a freshman, Williams didn’t get a ton of minutes right away, but she used the spring season as a way to elevate her game. During Williams’ freshman year, Holy Cross rarely, if ever, utilized the drag flick on their short corners. At that point, Williams wasn’t yet known as the drag flicker on her team. 

But that spring, in between waking up early for five-day-a-week morning practices, Williams worked on developing the drag flick, a shot that’s now become her go-to on short corners. 

The shot is a very technical movement that requires the entire corner unit to be in sync, placing the ball in the most precise of spots. 

First, the ball is inserted into play in the circle from the corner. Another member of the corner unit stops the incoming ball with their field hockey stick for the shooter. 

The shooter, in this case Saskia, can use a variety of different techniques such as a sweep, a hit, or slips off of it. But Saskia prefers the drag flick. For the shot to work effectively, the ball must be fully stopped, and then the shooter drags their stick along the turf, picks it up, and flicks it into the back of the net, beyond the goalie’s reach. 

“I’d say the key is the technique – it took me a while to get comfortable with it because it’s a pretty awkward movement,” Williams said. “The power is what makes it effective, so moving forward I want to keep getting stronger in the weight room.” 

Each day at practice, Williams shows up with a concrete goal in mind. She internalizes that goal, then speaks it out loud, and before you know it, she’s accomplishing that goal. 

“25 minutes later, it’s being played out on the field. Anything, she says, you know that there’s gonna be an action behind it, because she’s telling herself that,” Sturgis said. “Especially on corners, there’s been a ton of development in her drag flicking skill. And I think every year she’s come back, every season she’s come back, whether it’s fall or spring, you can see all the work that she’s put in and off time and over breaks. When she says she’s gonna do something, you know, she will.” 

Following an impressive freshman spring, Williams saw the field more frequently, starting in 10 games her sophomore season, eight more than she started her freshman year. 

“She has earned absolutely every minute that she’s received on the field, no one’s fighting that as far as getting the minutes that she has just because she came in and she didn’t get them immediately,” Sturgis said. “She had to put in the work in the off-season and fight for those minutes. And she made it her goal, I remember my freshman spring, to earn those minutes.” 

In her sophomore campaign, Williams scored two goals (including a game-winner) and added an assist, which matched her freshman year numbers. 

So far this season, Williams has started in her team’s first five games, playing left back in the first few games and midfielder the last few. In her freshman season, Williams played forward on occasion. Her adaptability dates back to her early years playing the sport, when she constantly alternated between forward and midfielder. 

“That just speaks to her skills, and her confidence as a field hockey player in general. You know, she’s strong on the ball,” Carrozza said. “She can throw great overheads, come up with great balls in the D and then just has a good eye for scoring in the circle as well, great drag flick. When I think of Saskia, her being versatile and having a lot of different skills to play anywhere on the field, has been awesome to have her on the team for.”

Coach Jackson’s been playing Williams at midfielder lately because she really likes the way she connects the backs and the attackers with the sound passing ability she learned playing the game in England. But most importantly, Jackson knows that the goal-scoring ability is there. 

“She’s [a] killer scoring, too. She is a goal scorer,” Jackson said. “She hasn’t quite found it yet, but she is, she just has to get it in the games.” 

It’s all about getting the ball in the attacking end, so that Saskia can get more shots on goal. Earning Patriot League Midfielder of the Week honors is a massive step in the right direction. 

“If you’re getting Midfielder of the Week for that performance, just wait till you really hit the performance that you’re capable of because I think that there’s more she can do, and she knows there’s more she can do,” Jackson recalls telling Saskia. “I think this hopefully gives her some great confidence to push her performance to be what we know it can be because we know she’s got a lot of potential.” 

Featured image courtesy of Holy Cross Athletics