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It’s no surprise Lonica McKinney did her homework.
Sporting at 96% average during her Grade 12 year at Kelowna Secondary School — despite missing an abundance of school due to commitments to her multiple athletic endeavours — McKinney is obviously proficient with self-disciplined studies.
Putting her academic skills to work, she researched thoroughly several schools interested in recruiting the KSS Owls’ field hockey prodigy and a member of the Canadian junior national team for the past two years.
McKinney communicated with five Canadian universities and another five NCAA Division 1 schools (University of Maine, University of Vermont, Saint Louis University, Long Island University and Virginia Commonwealth University), three of which offered her full-ride scholarships.
While the schools had plenty to ask about her qualifications and did due diligence in their recruitment process, McKinney had many inquiries of her own.
“I had a full page of questions I asked each of them after they asked theirs of me and I recorded what they had to say so I didn’t have to take notes and could concentrate better,” she recalled recently after accepting a scholarship with Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Va. worth more than $200,000 (Canadian) over four years.
“One of my biggest concerns was about the coaching,” added McKinney. “How competitive and successful have the coach’s teams been? How well does the coach relate to the players? Would she/he be open to me taking time to attend Canadian junior development camps during the NCAA season?”
VCU Rams coach Stacey Bean checked all the boxes.
A graduate of Laurentian University in Sudbury and the University of New Brunswick where Bean played field hockey and earned CIAU All-Canadian honours in her senior year, she is well-versed in the Canadian national team program.
After a nine-year stint as head coach at Saint Francis (Pennsylvania), Bean was named head coach at VCU and led the Rams to a 14-6 record, the second-most wins in a single season in program history. She’s been a four-time finalist for national coach-of-the-year honours.
“Coach Bean always goes the extra mile for the team and for each individual player — which I know is a recipe for success,” notes McKinney. “She even came to watch me play for the junior national team in Victoria and was in Dublin (Ireland) when we played there earlier this year.
“She is like a female version of Coach B (Arnar Bernhardsson of KSS). Her players are her family.”
Academically, VCU is ranked seventh among U.S. schools offering Forensic Sciences, an area of great interest to the always-inquisitive McKinney, who turns 18 on Tuesday and leaves for Richmond a day later.
“I felt completely welcomed by the girls on the team before I had even made my decision,” she said. “As I have been bleeding black and gold at KSS for the past three years, I could clearly see myself bleeding black and gold with the VCU Rams for another four years.”
McKinney is coming off the national U21 team’s trip to Ireland where it took part in the Four Nation Tournament that included competition against India, Scotland and the host team. A week after she heads down to Richmond, she’ll fly back to Victoria for a four-day Canadian Development Squad camp.
In her final year of field hockey at KSS, she led the Owls to a fourth-place finish at the B.C. School Sports AAA championship, following up a pair of silver-medal performances in her Grade 10 and 11 years.
Those accomplishments led to McKinney being presented with the Augie Ciancone Award as the top female high school athlete in the Central Okanagan, who also excels in ice hockey, baseball, soccer and ultimate frisbee.
That McKinney, one of his co-captains, has found a new home in Virginia and has represented Canada at international competitions is no surprise to Bernhardsson, the Owls’ head coach.
“Lonica is an amazing person and has been a great leader for the Owls during the past three years with us,” says Bernhardsson. “She’s filled several different roles — wherever and whenever we’ve needed her. She’s all about the team — she’s a very unselfish player.”
Bernhardsson — who also coached current Canadian national-team members Danielle Hennig and Natalie Sourisseau, as well as former Team Canada member, Abigail Raye, now playing professionally in Belgium— believes McKinney might even be ahead of where those players were in development coming out of high school.
“She reads the game extremely well, and with her speed, stamina, and anticipation, she harasses defenders to no end. She’s a pit-bull out there.”
While the Owls utilized McKinney as a midfielder and a striker, Coach B expects VCU to slot her in as the latter — the position she’s been playing with the Canadian junior team.
“Her explosiveness for the first four or five steps are exceptional. And when she is keyed on by the opposition, she is smart enough to find and feed her teammates.
“People underestimate just how quick Lonica is, and when you add in her scoring touch around the goal, you have quite a package.”
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