School announces newest NCAA program

Liberty University has answered a strong demand from its female students and added its 21st NCAA Division I program in the form of a women’s field hockey team that will be coached by newly-hired Jodi Murphy.

Murphy will name her roster this week, after holding tryouts last week. The announced team will comprise the first half of the 80th Division I Field Hockey team in the country, according to Murphy.

“We’re going to look to select about 13 or 14 girls for the spring team,” Murphy said. “We’ve been recruiting a whole bunch since I’ve gotten the job to hopefully bring in about 12 or 13 more for the fall team. So, ideally, it’d be about 24 or 25 girls on our roster.”

In preparation for the team’s NCAA Division I membership to start in the summer and official season to start in the fall of 2011, Murphy said the team will be training and competing as a club team this spring.

The experience has been a blessing according to Murphy, who most recently served as an assistant coach at Richmond.

“It’s just a completely humbling experience to get to say that you’ve started a Division I program from scratch,” Murphy said. “And I do feel really humbled by it and really excited by it.”

After all the preparation done in her office, she said was ready to feel a whistle around her neck again.

“I’ve been recruiting a whole bunch, and it’s been really nice to get out and interact with the girls,” Murphy said.

It has been no problem finding girls for the team, as the interest from female students has been high since the time Liberty hired her in November, according to Murphy.

“I think there’s a whole bunch of girls on campus who played in their high schools that really wanted to be at a Christian university and, understandably, that took precedent for them,” Murphy said. “It’s just been an answer to prayer for them that the school kind of yielded to the needs of the student body … It’s been great how quickly and how responsive the girls have been.”

There were 28 girls at the interest meeting and 20 to 24 daily at tryouts, and Murphy said she is already signing on girls who will come in as freshmen next year. Together, these girls will create a team that Murphy is optimistic about, although she said it’s still early.

“I think our defense is really strong with the couple of incoming girls that I’ve recruited,” Murphy said. “I’ve got two All-State girls coming in for defense … And the first couple of years you’ve got to have a strong defense.”

Ann Jefferis, 20, is a transfer student from the University of Richmond who Murphy recruited and who has solidified a spot as the team’s goalkeeper. She exemplifies the demand that Murphy described. Jefferis transferred to Liberty partly for the nursing program, but the creation of the field hockey team made it a perfect fit, according to Murphy.

“I’m definitely really excited about the team,” Jefferis said. “I’m really excited about what we can do starting up a Division I program, what we can do representing a Christian school and representing that in the Division I athletics.”

The field hockey team has not joined a conference as of yet and information about tournaments and games will be available soon.