Britney Bunbanlu packed her bag for the two-hour trip to Tampa in late March 2020.
Bunbanlu, a defensive UF club field hockey player, looked forward to high-caliber competition against the University of Tampa.
The game never happened. They never drove to Tampa.
The COVID-19 pandemic swept across Florida and suspended travel for the UF club field hockey team. With only four or five games a year, the players felt crushed and hoped for a short-lived pandemic.
“It was very disappointing,” Bunbanlu said.
They looked forward to the national field hockey tournament in Virginia Beach that fall. It too fell victim to the pandemic.
“It is what we work towards for the end of the season every year,” team president Gina Allegrini said.
A year later, the team still waits for authorization to travel outside of the state of Florida again. The season ends April 23, and the team has yet to travel. Their last game was Fall 2019.
Despite the roadblocks the pandemic created, they didn’t stop Allegrini from setting up an offseason conditioning program.
Allegrini had the team use an app called “Social Steps.” They exercised from home, tracking each others’ steps while running and doing other workout activities.
Ashley Memmolo, a 20-year-old UF zoology junior, competed virtually with her teammates as the app tracked their progress.
The remote group workouts kept everyone involved with the team, Memmolo said. Allegrini even rewarded the winner of the weekly challenge with a gift card.
“It was a nice alternative to practice, and we could still in essence be connected,” she said.
A Boston native, Memmolo was hooked on the game in high school after trying it out a single time. She liked how strong she felt when she played.
”I actually had no idea what it was, but I just went to the first tryout anyways,” she said. “I fell in love with it, so I’m still playing.”
Field hockey is an endurance sport, and Memmolo likes being able to grow and sharpen her skills.
Allegrini and Memmolo both planned to continue playing field hockey in college. Bunbanlu, however, had other plans.
“I never wanted to play in college,” Bunbanlu said. “I wanted to go to college strictly for academics.”
In middle school, Bunbanlu had to choose between two sports: volleyball and field hockey. When she started high school, she moved to the field hockey varsity team as a freshman. The team had about 30 players and only pulled up three players, the 20-year-old UF marketing junior said.
When Bunbanlu attended the club teams fair in the fall, she signed up on the spot.
In field hockey, a defensive player like Bunbalu can score goals. She clinched four over the course of last season.
The sticks are designed so that only one side is effective at hitting the ball whereas in ice hockey both sides work, Bunbanlu said. The goals are larger than hockey’s or lacrosse’s but smaller than soccer’s, even though the sport uses the same boundary lines as a soccer field.
The team, Bunbanlu said, has a real sense of camaraderie that stems from their love of the sport, eating together and sharing where they’re from. The team is populated by players from the northern U.S., which gave them common ground.
One thing they all agree on is that pizza is far superior up north. Allegrini and Bunbanlu are both from Connecticut.
“We always compare the pizza from up there to down here because Florida pizza is, like, trash compared to up there,” Bunbanlu quipped.
Allegrini’s path to field hockey took longer than most. The 20-year-old UF business management senior spent countless hours training for competitive gymnastics since she was three years old.
She was tired of spending all her time in the gym. Then, she discovered the sport when practicing with a friend the summer before her freshman year of high school.
Eight years later, Allegrini transformed from a player to a coach. During the pandemic, Allegrini scheduled team practices every Monday at 6 p.m. for one hour.
Memmolo believes Allegrini emphasizes mental health when she encouraged team members to come to practice.
“It’s a good environment,” Memmolo said. “It’s a healthy team aspect, so I really do enjoy coming to practice because of that.”
The UF club field hockey team has an assortment of skill levels, with players who played in high school and others who never played before. Only one player is from Florida. The team also claimed upward of 10 international players, too, said Allegrini.
While there are no international players on the team now, Allegrini hopes there will be in the future. The sport is popular abroad, and she enjoyed learning new techniques from international players.
Despite the challenges, the team continues to look forward to travel for tournaments once the pandemic is behind them.
Josh Kapke is a contributing writer for The Alligator.
