Mikki Roberts and her junior field hockey teammates look back on World Cup victory
On Monday, December 11, 2023, the Netherlands made a stunning comeback to clinch their fifth Junior Women’s Field Hockey World Cup by beating Argentina. One of the victorious players is Mikki Roberts, a student at Tilburg University.
Roberts is in her third year of the Bachelor’s degree program in Economics & Business Economics. Combining her studies with a demanding professional sports program, she plays competitive major-league field hockey at field hockey club Tilburg and travels to Amsterdam several times a week to practice with the national squad.
In the news
Brabants Dagblad published a feature on the win and on how the three players from the province of North Brabant experienced the World Cup tournament: Junior women field hockey players from Brabant look back on World Cup win (in Dutch). The feature has this to say about Mikki Roberts (to the right in the picture):
Shortly after half-time, Roberts capitalized on a penalty corner that set the scene for an epic conclusion. Three minutes before full-time, the Dutch team scored the equalizer. Again, it was the Tilburg player who scored, and again from a penalty corner, her eighth of the tournament – the same tally as that of Trijntje Beljaars from Waalre. “I didn’t realize time was nearly up,” 21-year-old Roberts confesses. “Throughout the second half, we were the better team. All we needed was the equalizer. When that happened, we felt relieved. We were back in control.”
Dual Career
Mikki Roberts is in the Tilburg University Dual Career program for professional athletes. Want to know more about this program?