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AUGUST 2022 31 cavalier profile DANIELLE HUSAR Fourth-Year • Field Hockey This past spring, the Virginia field hockey team had five scrim- mages and mini-tournaments that provided the squad with an offseason chance to hone their skills. All of the players from the team that advanced to last season's ACC Tournament championship match who will be returning in the fall were there. All but one: fourth- year midfielder Danielle Husar. Husar was in Potchefstroom, South Africa, approximately 75 miles southwest of Johannesburg. Even though she was more than 8,000 miles away from her teammates, she was also honing her skills while competing at the FIH Junior World Cup. Husar, a native of Mississauga, Ontario, was playing for Team Can- ada in her second international tournament in a nine-month span. She previously had missed her Cavalier team's preseason training in the fall while helping to lead the "Wolf Pups" (the nickname of the Cana- dian Junior National Team) to a gold-medal finish at the 2021 Junior Pan American Cup in Santiago, Chile. The gold medal was the first ever for the Canadian Junior National Team and the first Canadian women's Pan American gold registered at any level. It also earned the team its first invitation to compete at the Junior World Cup since 2013. Husar, who plays midfield for the Cavaliers but is a striker for Team Canada, is a veteran of international competition. She won a bronze medal in Dublin, Ireland, in 2019 with the Canada U21 team at the 4 Nations Tournament, and she also played in a test series with the U23 team in China that same year. Despite missing preseason training with her collegiate teammates, Husar was able to slide back seamlessly into the Cavaliers' lineup in the fall, and head coach Michele Madison has no doubt that Husar's alternate spring training will help the team this coming season. "No words can depict Dani's invaluable life lessons encountered on her travels and experiences with her national teams," Madison said. "Her usual mature and positive outlook was challenged on and off the field, and those experiences created an even more deter- mined, focused and competitive Dani." The Cavaliers open their season Aug. 26 at Penn State. — Melissa Dudek • Photo by Matt Riley/courtesy UVA