Irish World Cup silver medal winners Lena Tice and Ayeisha McFerran have both been named on shortlists for the FIH Hockey Stars awards following an epic 2018.
The 20-year-old Tice is named on the Rising Star list of five players alongside the Netherlands’ Marijn Veen, Australia’s Ambrosia Malone, Germany’s Nike Lorenz and Argentina’s Lucina van der Heyde.
The Glenealy woman – who also played senior cricket for Ireland at the age of 13 – was not only an ever-present in the centre of the Irish defence in London. She won both the Irish Senior Cup and EY Hockey League with UCD, and then won the six-week New Zealand Hockey League after the World Cup when she lined out for North Harbour.
To cap it off, she was named player of the tournament in the Australian Hockey League with the Canberra Strikers as they won bronze.
McFerran, meanwhile, will be one of the obvious contenders for the Goalkeeper of the Year gong. She was named the top netminder at the World Cup following a pair of shoot-out wins as well as producing numerous stunning stops in regular play.
On top of her World Cup silver she was also named as an All-American representative for a fourth successive year with University of Louisville.
The Hockey Star awards are voted on by the public with the International Hockey Federation’s website (fih.ch). It is expected that Irish coach Graham Shaw will feature heavily in the reckoning for the Coach of the Year award.
Former men’s coach Craig Fulton won the coaching prize in 2015, while David Harte was the men’s Goalkeeper of the Year in 2015 and 2016.
