VICTORIA - At the start of her first year at university, Anna Mollenhauer heard a quote that she still lives by to this day.
 
"Follow your heart, not your head," says Victoria Vikes women's field hockey head coach Lynne Beecroft – a piece of advice helped guide the fourth-year standout last season.
 
While the Vikes were hoping to repeat as U SPORTS national champions last fall, Mollenhauer was asked to train with the Canadian senior women's team in their journey to qualify for the Olympics. She was coming off a year where she blossomed into one of the brightest young stars in Canada — winning both Canada West and U SPORTS Player of the Year.
 
She made her first international senior level cap during a tour in China in the winter of 2019, and in the ensuing summer, Mollenhauer was called upon to don the red and white for Canada at the FIH Series Finals in Spain — a tournament where Canada needed a top-two finish to move into the next level of Olympic qualification. The Canadian women, ranked 21^st in the word at the time, knocked off the 17^th-ranked Italians on their way to a second place finish that earned them a spot in an Olympic qualifying playoff in the fall, paving the way for the team to make their first appearance in the Olympics since 1992.
 
Mollenhauer, who was named the best junior player of all the Under-21 competitors in the FIH Series Finals, got the call from the senior team came while the Vikes were preparing for a weekend series with Canada West implications in Calgary.
 
"If she performed well enough she could get selected to the national team," says Beecroft, who also represented Canada in women's field hockey at the 1984 Olympics.
 
What that would have meant, however, was that Mollenhauer would travel with the Vikes to Calgary for the weekend set, fly across the continent to Pennsylvania to practice and play with the national team against the U.S., and then criss-cross back to Vancouver for a series against UBC. A daunting physical and mental task for a student-athlete in the middle of school and a season with high expectations on the turf.
 
"We weren't prepared to have her play," says Beecroft. "Out of 16 days, she would have done 14 days of training plus two long flights. And we said, 'Anna, if that's what you want to do, we will support you. But we don't feel it would be wise for you to come back to Vancouver and play against UBC.'"
 
For Mollenhauer, who has loved the game since she was four years old, and has a long family history in field hockey, making decisions is tough. But there was one phrase that rattled around in her mind: follow your heart, not your head.
   
Since she was little, Anna Mollenhauer has dreamed of representing Canada at the Olympic Games — regardless of the sport — just like her mother. Field hockey runs in the family for Mollenhauer, who grew up in Victoria and began to play the sport at the age of four. Her older sister played field hockey, and her mother, Nancy, is a Vikes alum, Field Hockey Canada Hall of Famer, and two-time Canadian Olympian.
 
"Growing up she's always been my biggest supporter, my biggest role model, and the whole reason why I got into the sport and why I'm still in the sport," Mollenhauer says. "She has always made it super clear that my journey is different from her journey and that I have no expectation to accomplish what she has accomplished."
 
After playing multiple sports growing up, including rep ice hockey for eight years, Mollenhauer made a provincial field hockey team before entering Grade 9 and joined Canada's junior national program in 2014. She continued to play ice hockey until Grade 11, before focusing solely on field hockey,
 
Beecroft, who played with Anna's mother at the Olympics, says she witnessed Mollenhauer's potential when she was four and dangling on the sidelines of a junior field hockey tournament in Victoria. 
 
"She was already doing stick skills, and she already looked like she could have been in with the six and seven year-olds because she looked so technically gifted," says Beecroft. "She's a kid that just picks something up and wants to practice."
 
Despite her talent, as she's gotten the chance to coach Mollenhauer at the university level, Beecroft insists Mollenhauer's work ethic and determination has contributed to her becoming the athlete she is today.
 
"She truly is the kid who doesn't worry about doing stuff when nobody is watching, she will do things when nobody is watching, and that's something you cannot teach."
 
When asked what aspect of her game she is most proud of, Mollenhauer hesitates for a second, before replying with a small chuckle that she doesn't really like to talk about herself. She likes to think of herself as a team player, and prefers to focus on accomplishments of the team and the highly skilled individuals she shares the turf with — a group of people who have played a crucial role in helping her earn 14 international caps for the Canadian senior national team at the age of 20.
 
"Field hockey is a team game, and I really like having teammates and playing with extremely skilled individuals to help improve my game and to help them improve their game," says Mollenhauer.
 
After taking home Canada West Rookie of the Year in her first season at UVic in 2017, and leading the Vikes to a national championship over the York Lions in her second year, Mollenhauer made her debut for Canada at the junior national level in a series at UVic against Chile. Later that summer, Mollenhauer joined the junior team in Belgium for a Six Nations tournament and would go to China in the winter of 2019 for a combined junior and senior national tour. One training session on that trip, when the senior team was short of bodies for practice, a coach asked if Mollenhauer would like to train with the seniors.
 
"I went over to their training and just kept training with them," she says. "And then I got to make my first senior level cap in China last January."
 
To cap off the summer, Mollenhauer was called to represent Canada again at the 2019 Pan American Games in Lima, Peru, and a few months later got the call to train with the seniors on their Olympic quest while UVic was at a crucial stage of their season.
 
Ultimately, Mollenhauer says, her heart wasn't fully invested in travelling with the national team — who missed out on the Olympics by losing in a shootout to Ireland — and stayed with UVic to help them qualify for nationals and ultimately defend their title against the Guelph Gryphons.
 
"It was a difficult decision," says Mollenhauer. "But my heart wasn't really in it... somewhere within me there was a part of me that wanted to stay. Obviously, any time there is an opportunity to train with the senior women's national team it's an incredible honour, but at that time my head wasn't in the right spot, so it wouldn't have been a good decision for me to go in there."
 
Beecroft was impressed with Mollenhauer's commitment to her teammates at UVic, and her decision to commit to the university team with no guarantee they would win the Canada West title and qualify for the U SPORTS championship.
 
"She had no idea whether we would make it to nationals, so she made a lot of sacrifices and I'm obviously pleased she would make that sacrifice but she feels that strongly about being a Vike and about being a contributor to this team," says Beecroft, who adds Mollenhauer is the epitome of a Vikes student-athlete and someone who has all the tools to be on the senior national women's team for years to come.
 
"She has all the qualities that you would want in a national team athlete. She cares about her teammates, she will help you out if you happen to make a mistake, she'll do what she can to help you out, she's got everything in my books that will allow her to be successful at the next level."
   
Two days before the Canadian national team takes on Ireland, Mollenhauer scores two goals in the U SPORTS championship-deciding Game 2 of the best-of-three series at UVic. She is named national championship MVP as the Vikes beat the Gryphons for their 13^th title, second consecutive banner and first on home turf since 2008.
 
While posing for a team photo, Mollenhauer crouches down with an ear to ear grin on her face in front of the championship banner. Teammates and coaches hug each other. Some hold up a single finger up for the camera. Field hockey sticks and equipment are sprayed across the turf in the background, but Mollenhauer doesn't mind and embraces her teammates.
Download the latest Give & Go Vikes podcast featuring Mollenhauer and her championship teammate, Ashton Aumen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.