This afternoon, the field hockey team representing The College of New Jersey will be playing its penultimate game in its 2024 New Jersey Athletic Conference slate, hosting Stockton University.
TCNJ, so ably coached by Sharon Pfluger for nearly 40 seasons, is 9-5 on the season, and will likely need to win the NJAC Tournament in order to make it to the NCAA Division III bracket.
One of the better players for the Lions this season is a midfielder named Rayhana Ahmed. She was a back when she prepped at Bridgewater-Raritan (N.J.), but is in the center of the park for one of the better programs in Division III field hockey.
You can always tell where Ahmed is, not just because of her quickness and her penchant for goal-scoring, but because of what she is wearing. Ahmed is a devout Muslim, and, as such, she wears black leggings as well as a headscarf.
Ahmed has been featured in an Instagram feature called Muslim Girls Ball Too, and is pictured on social media sites and on the TCNJ website wearing a sports hijab. In terms of diversity and inclusion, having a player as talented as Ahmed is on one of the best collegiate programs in the U.S. is a game-changer.
When you watch a TCNJ game, she makes things happen all over the pitch. In a recent game against Rowan, she showed a willingness to go after a ball in an open space, chipping it past the opposing goalie to allow teammate Julia Neff a tap-in.
Ahmed is also a good defender as well as a corner flyer for the TCNJ defense. She was unlucky to have been called for a penalty stroke late in that Rowan game in the course of her corner defense duties, but she has been one of the better all-around players on the team.
She’s worth a watch.
