Longwood University Athletics

FARMVILLE, Va. – Continuing the upward trajectory of a program that has notched three consecutive third-place finishes in the Mid-American Conference, Longwood field hockey head coach Iain Byers announced the addition of three incoming freshmen to his roster for the upcoming 2019 season.
 
The group includes two Virginia natives and a player from The Netherlands with forward Caroline Hampton (Virginia Beach, Va./Ocean Lakes), forward Floor Schouten (Deventer, The Netherlands/Hockeyclub DHV) and defender Caroline Verhappen (Norfolk, Va./Maury High School) set to join the team this fall.
 
Those three add depth at all three levels of the field for the Lancers, who enter the 2019 season with a veteran roster that includes a core of four seniors and five juniors along with nine returning starters from last year's squad. That group helped Longwood to a 9-7 overall record and a 4-2 performance in the MAC in 2018, which earned the Lancers a third consecutive trip to the MAC Championship tournament.
 
Both Hampton and Verhappen hail from the Virginia coast, while Schouten becomes the fifth international player on a roster that already includes players from Argentina and Germany. At Longwood they will come under the tutelage of Byers, who is opening his 12th season as Longwood's head coach and has amassed 101 career wins in that span.
 
Caroline Hampton is a 5-7 forward and midfielder from Virginia Beach, Va., and a three-sport athlete at Ocean Lakes High School. A letterwinner in field hockey, tennis and track, her field hockey resume includes back-to-back all-region awards as a junior and senior along with an All-Tidewater second-team selection this past season. Also a team captain as a senior and two-time team MVP, she is coming off a 15-goal season that capped a standout career with the Dolphins. As a junior, she erupted for 20 goals and 23 assists with that breakout following a 12-goal sophomore campaign.
 
Hampton also competed with the Saints Hockey Rocks and led that team to a fifth-place finish at the 2017 National Club Championship while also qualifying for the NITs in 2016, 2017 and 2018.
 
"Caroline is a committed, creative player from Virginia," Byers said. "She has shown the ability to move the ball well and find great spaces. She will be joining an already strong front line in 2019, and we look forward to the contributions she will make there."
 
A four-year member of the honor roll, Hampton served on the SCA Executive Board and the Class of 2019 Executive Board at Ocean Lakes. She intends to major in psychology and pursue a career as a therapist specializing in cognitive and behavioral therapy.
 
Floor Schouten is a 5-7 forward from Deventer, The Netherlands, where she has competed with Hockeyclub DHV for more than a decade. She joined that club when she was just five years old and has become a standout for a team that competes nationally at the organization's highest level. In 2013, she helped the group reach the D-Day Netherlands Championship in Division I.
 
Schouten is also a field hockey legacy with three sisters and two brothers, all of whom play the sport. She also plays soccer, and in her spare time she plays piano, skis and snowboards.
 
"Floor is a very talented attacking player from the Netherlands," Byers said. "She possesses speed and skill, which is a potent combination. She is definitely going to add to our front line."
 
Caroline Verhappen is a 5-5 midfielder and defender from Norfolk, Va., where she was a two-sport athlete at Matthew Fontaine Maury High School, lettering in both field hockey and soccer. As the starting center defender for the Commodore field hockey squad, she amassed a combined 33 goals in her junior and senior seasons and collected Virginia 5A All-Region first-team honors for three consecutive years. A team captain as a senior, she also earned All-Tidewater second-team honors in 2018 in leading Maury to a 12-4 record.
 
Verhappen was a member of Maury's 2016 Virginia 5A Regional Championship and 2015 Atlantic Coastal Conference Championship teams and also helped lead her AAU Junior Olympic Team to a first-place finish in 2017.
 
"Caroline is a hard-working midfielder with the ability to move the ball well," Byers said. "She has tremendous fitness, which will be a huge asset to us this year. She will be an engine room in our midfield."
 
A member of the National Honor Society and Latin Honor Society, Verhappen plans to major in biology with an emphasis in secondary education at Longwood and aspires to attend nursing school after graduation. Her long-term career goal is to become a pediatric trauma nurse.
 
The Lancers will report to campus for the start of preseason training on Aug. 13 and prepare for their first game on Aug. 20, a 1 p.m. road scrimmage at Richmond. Two more exhibitions at home against Christopher Newport (Aug. 23) and on the road at Queens (Aug. 24) will follow before Longwood officially kicks off the 2019 season at Monmouth on Aug. 30.


 
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