Meghan Minturn, seen in action last season for New Trier’s field hockey team, will play her college ball at Colgate. PHOTOGRAPHY BY JOEL LERNER
It is slick and cool-looking and highly effective. It has a lasso-at-a-rodeo element to it, only lower to the ground. It is Meghan Minturn’s reverse-sweep shot on a field hockey field. The New Trier senior midfielder used the sweeping swing to whack a ball past a goalie in a victory last week.
It turned heads.
It stunned an opponent.
It unleashed momentum for a team that had trailed visiting Lake Forest Academy 1-0 on Sept. 1. New Trier would go on to strike for nine more unanswered goals in a 10-1 victory in Northfield.
“Nobody reverse sweeps as hard as Meghan does,” Trevians senior midfielder Julia Gottreich, a Bowdoin College recruit, insists. “She’s really good at other things, too, like dribbling and playing defense. Huge part. Meghan is a huge part of our team.”
One of four captains this fall, Minturn got promoted to varsity at the end of her sophomore season, practicing with a varsity squad that would win a state championship. Minturn helped the Trevians capture another state title — the program’s 12th — last fall.
“Meghan is intense, but she doesn’t get worked up and rattled in games,” NT field hockey coach Stephanie Nykaza says. “She remains calm … that’s good for the team. It’s a high-level skill, her reverse swing, and she worked hard on her skill level in the offseason. Her three-step explosiveness … that’s what I need from her, what we need from her. And we get that from her.
“She is so good at reading the field and popping into space,” the coach adds. “You want workhorses running around and competing as midfielders. Meghan also has the kind of endurance you want from a midfielder.”
A little more than a year ago, Minturn, thinking about her chances of playing field hockey in college, asked Nykaza, “Am I good enough?” Nykaza nudged her, encouraged her. Minturn then began doing the things determined athletes are supposed to do — researching college fits, enhancing her game, showcasing her game — and later verbally committing to Colgate University. Good enough.
Mary Clare, New Trier grad, plays field hockey at Colgate.
Maggie Lake, New Trier grad, plays field hockey at Colgate.
“I am thrilled Meghan is going to Colgate,” Nykaza says. “She’ll do fine there. Hey, Colgate coaches like us now. They got some glimpses of us, here in the Midwest, and they continue to watch our players, recruit our players.”
Minturn gave soccer a try until opting to focus solely on field hockey after her freshman year. Learning new field hockey skills invigorated her. It continues to do so today.
“It’s different,” the 5-foot-6 Minturn, a Winnetka resident, says, noting field hockey involves more running and, for her position, more responsibilities at both ends of the field compared to soccer. “I like it. I’ve always liked it, starting in my seventh grade.
“It got really exciting for me when I was able to watch, from a sideline, our team win state [in 2014]. That entire postseason … what great memories. Our team did so well.”
Minturn does not just read the sport of field hockey well. She reads books, lots of books. All those Harry Potter books? Miss Minturn, also a math/science enthusiast, read every word of every page. She just finished A Girl on a Train, a mystery thriller.
“Creepy vibe,” she says of the book by Paula Hawkins.
A movie based on the book, starring Emily Blunt, hits theaters on Oct. 7, two days after NT hosts Lake Forest High School in a field hockey game. Expect a thriller, live, outdoors. LFHS edged visiting New Trier 3-2 in overtime on Aug. 30, the Trevians’ lone loss in their first five games.
One of Minturn’s constant inspirations is her father, Corey, a man constantly in motion. Dad Minturn just picked up paddle boarding. He absolutely loves it. He golfs and bikes and windsurfs, too.
“My dad does whatever interests him,” Minturn says. “He’s passionate about a lot of things. He’s into breweries; he might even open a brewery one day. He’s quite supportive of my interests, and he loves to discuss field hockey. He never says, ‘Let’s talk field hockey.’ ” He likes to shout, ‘Let’s talk fockey!’ ”
Notable: New Trier’s four captains this fall are Meghan Minturn, Julia Gottreich, Georgetown recruit and senior midfielder Nell Van Schaack and senior defender Isabelle Sennett, a lacrosse standout. … NT got hat tricks from senior forwards Bergen Soudan and Erin Joseph in its 10-1 defeat of visiting Lake Forest Academy on Sept. 1, on the eve of its trip (three games) to St. Louis. NT senior forward Clare Kennedy tallied a pair of goals against the Caxys, and Minturn and Van Schaack scored one apiece.
Trevians goalies Therese Cooney (one goal allowed) and Emma Lauber each played a half.