Fall is a busy time for Maia Lawrence, as the Oak Bay High student-athlete heads into field hockey season, and cross country on top of singing in the choir.
While Maia comes from a family of field hockey players, her mom Meena and brother Kai both also play, she didn’t start looking at it through a competitive lens until about seventh grade. She enjoys sports in general, they make her happy, but Maia realized her desire was to be among the best.
“I want to be as good as I can at it,” she said.
Now in Grade 11, she patiently waited out pandemic cancellations of competitive sporting events. While waiting, she enjoyed spending time with – and training alongside – the family.
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Lawrence and classmate Monet Thurbide finally added a national notch to their belts this summer after a hard-won battle against Ontario.
The pair hit the pitch with the B.C. blue team to finish first at nationals Aug. 10 to 14 in Langley.
The BC white team took bronze with a 4-2 win over Alberta. BC yellow finished fifth.
BC blue started strong downing Alberta 7-0 to start the competition and later that day edged their BC white team counterparts 2-0. The next day they dumped BC yellow 6-0 followed up with a 1-0 win over Ontario to get to the finals.
On Aug. 14 the team pulled off a repeat, edging Ontario 1-0 for the gold.
“We hadn’t played any of those teams in years,” Maia said. “I was just so excited to go to nationals and then we won.”