This is the third of 10 columns written by Mary Jo Haverbeck and published on USAToday.com

It's A Week For Prodigies -- Meet Amy Stopford

Let's play field hockey Jeopardy. Answer: Amy Stopford of Hillsborough, N.C. Question: What is a definition of a field hockey prodigy?

Stopford, a 14-year-old, is the youngest member of the U.S. Under 19 team pushing her years ahead of her slightly older peers who are on the U.S. Under 16 team.

How unusual is this?

It's all neatly spelled out by the United States Field Hockey Association in a definition for membership in its elite team programs.

"To represent this country at the highest level requires as much patience and perseverance as skill and talent. As a result, earning a position on a US Field Hockey team is a highly competitive endeavor, and the process generally takes years of training and experience."

Apparently that doesn't apply to Amy, who only began playing when she was in fifth grade. "My mom showed me how to play on a field at a school close to our house," she recalls. "She had played high school field hockey and club field hockey, and because I was a very energetic, athletic child, she wanted to let me try a variety of different sports."

Way to go mom.

When she was 13, Stopford won the Joel Farrel Sportsmanship Award at the Junior Olympics. Last August she was named the Sport EuroTour Player of the Week.

As a ninth grader, Stopford played in the 1999 AAU Junior Olympic Games and earned a place on the Under 16 team.

She advanced through the USFHA Futures program all the way to "A" camp and, last summer, competed with the Under 19 squad in the Montreal Cup.

At an early age, Stopford was mastering the fundamentals of movement. "I used to take ballet and jazz outside of school and dance was my love. But, when I started to play field hockey, it compromised my time."

What really pushes Amy is the demands hockey makes on her. "There is a certain amount of speed and quickness in field hockey that forces you to be thinking at every moment," she says. "Anticipation is key when playing. I have always seemed to love having the challenge to try to think faster than the opponent and beating her this way."

Stopford's heroes are her teachers, friends and family, although she has some role models in athletics. "I look up to Leslie (Lyness) because when she gets injured or is tired, she seems to look past it and plays her heart out.

"I look up to Cindy (Werley) because she is so fluid and beautiful to watch and she knows how to score. And both of these players are just as nice as they can be."

This fall, Stopford is a 10th grader at Durham Academy in North Carolina. An honor student, she is her school's Female Athlete of the Year and was an all-state selection on Durham's state runner-up field hockey team last year.

Right now her interest is hockey but she says she enjoys it more when she's also playing another sport. In the spring, she turns to soccer and, in her limited free time, she plays tennis with her mom.

She's working her way back from a torn hamstring, an injury she sustained in Montreal, that has kept her out of action for three months.

"It's a struggle, trying to get through the weeks, because I have to wake up very early to go to physical therapy before school and then I go to practice in the afternoon and come home and do my homework while I'm exhausted.

"On top of this, I want to have a social life, and it is really hard to have that with all the other obligations I have."

But she somehow finds time to do it all. Here's why. "I get that amazing rush when I play. I don't exactly know how to describe it, but it's an energy that sends your drive to win soaring."

MEDALS: Hometown favorite Australia won the gold medal in Sydney at the Olympic Games with a 3-1 win over Argentina. The Aussies become the first women's team in Olympic hockey history to repeat as champions.

CAROLE: Carole Thate, the all-time leading scorer at James Madison with 116 goals and 268 points, scored a goal as the Netherlands defeated Spain in the bronze medal game. Thate lists winning the NCAA championship with the Dukes as one of her career highlights. She had played in two previous Olympic Games.

OPEN WIDE: The Newcastle Dentists Hockey Club in England represents the Dental School in IM field hockey competition at the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne. Links on the club's web site are opening and closing mouths.

UPSETS: Add St. Michael's to the list of spoilers in this free-for-all season. The Vermont-based school upset Bentley 2-1 ending the Falcons' 32-game conference win streak. And Wake Forest, upset winners over Division I champion Maryland, lost its first of the fall to ACC rival North Carolina 3-2 in Chapel Hill.

THAT'S ONE: Indiana earned its first win in its rejuvenated program blanking Bellarmine 4-0.