FAIRFAX, Va. – As the 2017 Federation of International Lacrosse Women's World Cup rolls on, several key participants boast George Mason ties.
And on Thursday a trio of former Patriots will be on opposite sides with a trip to the championship game on the line.
Midfielder Chloe Chan, a 2016 Mason graduate, will lace up her cleats and take the field for her home country of England. Across the sidelines, on the coaching staff of the United States will be former Patriots All-American Liz Robertshaw and former Mason head coach Amy Bokker.
England and the USA meet in a semifinal at 1 p.m. (EST) at the Women's World Cup in Guildford, England. The winner will play either Canada or Australia in the final at 10 a.m. (EST) on Saturday. The losers of the two semifinals will meet in the third-place game at 7 a.m. (EST) on Saturday. All games are being streamed live (paid subscription) here.
Chan, a native of Manchester, England, is playing in her first World Cup. She is no stranger to international play though, having played for English national teams the last eight years.
She first made the U-19 team when she was just 15. She played for England at the 2011 U-19 World Championships in Germany. In 2015, she won a gold medal with England's National Team at the 2015 Women's Lacrosse European Championships in Czech Republic. In 2016, the summer after her last season at Mason, she played on England's National Team during a summer trip to Australia.
She was a four-year letterwinner for the Patriots from 2013-16. The 5-foot-11 midfielder played in 65 games and made 37 starts. Her 76 career draw controls are ninth-most all-time in program history.
Robertshaw and Bokker both have been members of the U.S. Women's National Team coaching staff since 2009. The pair helped the U.S. capture gold at the 2013 Women's World Cup in Canada. Bokker also served as an assistant for Canada at the 2009 World Cup in Prague, Czech Republic, helping the Canadians win bronze.
Robertshaw, a 1998 Mason grad, just finished her 11th season as the head coach at Boston University. Bokker (formerly Umbach) will begin her 10th season as the head coach at Stanford next spring after she spent 11 years at the helm of the Patriots' program.
Robertshaw was the first Mason lacrosse player to earn IWLCA All-American honors, doing so twice in 1997 and 1998. She was a two-time captain and recorded 90 caused turnovers in her career, which was then a school record and currently ranks seventh. The four-time All-Colonial Athletic Association honoree also received the Aimee Willard Award as the best collegiate player at the U.S. Lacrosse National Tournament in 1998. The award was named for former George Mason soccer and lacrosse standout Aimee Willard, who was tragically killed in 1996. Robertshaw also served as an assistant coach at Mason in 1999 under Bokker before joining the coaching staff at Brown University for four years. She then went to Boston University, where she was an assistant before taking over the program in 2006.
Bokker took over the Mason program before Robertshaw's senior season in 1998 and was the head coach until 2008. She left as the program's all-time winningest coach with 86 wins. She coached nine All-Americans, two Academic All-Americans, a Colonial Athletic Association Player of the Year, two CAA Defensive Players of the Year and a CAA Rookie of the Year.
In all, she coached 18 first-team all-conference players at Mason and her players totaled 48 all-conference honors. She also led the program to a school-record 12 wins in 2005. Though Bokker completed her undergraduate degree at William & Mary, she earned her master's degree in exercise, fitness and health promotion at George Mason in 2007.
