It’s been sunshine and rainbows for the Lady Warhawks as James Madison field hockey is on a five-game winning streak. Head coach Amy Hastings believes the biggest key to their success for this 2025 campaign has been teamwork. 

“The girls have been playing together for a long time and we have nine seniors,” she explained, while saying plenty of them have been with each other since playing for their club teams. “They’re just a bunch of really strong leaders.” 

Despite that, every streak faces pressure knowing that the Warhawks are in the spotlight of their district, and every team is looking to defeat them. Hastings acknowledges it, but to ensure her team is grounded and focused, she wants them to take it one game at a time. 

“Tonight we start our district play against South Lakes and that’s our most important game, so nothing really counts up to now because we have to be successful in districts to make it on to the next level,” she said. “We’re putting our team together since the girls didn’t have school today, but they all went out for breakfast to do some team bonding.” 

However, in the winning moments for the Warhawks, they were able to defeat competitive teams like Patriot and Yorktown. Hastings doesn’t believe there’s a defining moment; rather, they’re treating every game with the same energy. 

“We played well and won in Yorktown, but we have a lot of things we needed to improve on, so we take every game and we basically take our pros and cons and say, ‘we did these five things right and we did these five things that we could’ve done better, so let’s figure out how we can practice each day and work on our things we didn’t work on successfully,’” she said. 

Hastings mentioned the Warhawks defeated Yorktown only once last year, but they haven’t done so in the postseason when it counts. She said they’re taking every single thing they do and trying to make every player better. 

The momentum from this winning run has boosted the team’s confidence and chemistry, which was already strong with 10 returning starters, despite losing just one. 

“The girls had a good teamwork experience where they went to the beach in August during the preseason, so I took their phones for two days, and all they did was team bonding,” she said. “I feel like the girls are really confident with each other, and it makes a lot of our success on the field because they know where they’re able to put the ball and their teammates know where to get it.” 

A part of James Madison’s team motto this year is “it’s all about the huddle,” while taking all of their 19 players as one unit. Even though they have their team captains,  Teagan Hastings, Caroline Berry and Elizabeth Cate, Hastings wanted to emphasize every single athlete on the roster. She said it’s about making an impact across the board for this roster this season. 

“I think a lot of them are taking this opportunity to realize that this is the last time I might play high school sports,” she said. “We have one player planning to go play in college, but the rest of them are applying to colleges and trying to figure out where they’re going to land.” 

While the athletes are also juggling their AP classes, Hastings wants to ensure that the two-hour practices they have can help them decompress from their studies. She believes it’s not labor for the athletes to set foot on the field. 

With postseason aspirations, even though it’s still weeks away, Hastings plans out practice with her assistant coach minute-by-minute, so they can work on the things that they can improve. 

“They just roll with the punches and work hard,” she said. “I think they’re good athletes who are determined, self-confident, and just want to win.”

For now, the road will only get tougher as the Warhawks look to finish their season strong. Some of the key opponents this season are Chantilly, Oakton and Centreville.