Kelly Amonte Hiller Named USA Women's U20 Head Coach

SPARKS, Md. — Kelly Amonte Hiller, one of the most decorated players in U.S. women’s national team history and a highly successful coach at the collegiate and international levels, has been named as head coach of the U.S. women’s U20 team that will represent the country in the 2024 World Lacrosse Women’s U20 Championship in Hong Kong, China.

Amonte Hiller, the head women’s lacrosse coach at Northwestern University, previously led the U.S. women’s U19 team to a world championship in 2019 in Peterborough, Ontario, becoming the only person to win gold as a player and head coach with the U.S. national team program.

“Any time that you get to represent your country it’s a very special honor and I really enjoyed working with the players that I got to work with the last time around and the staff was really fun,” Amonte Hiller said. “I had a great experience and forged some relationships in a short amount of time.”

World Lacrosse has adjusted the age group up a year, but that won’t have much of an impact on Amonte Hiller’s player selection process. The majority of the 2019 U.S. team she coached, one of the most geographically-diverse rosters in U.S. national team history, already had a year of college experience, but three of the key players — Leah Holmes, Belle Smith and Caitlyn Wurzburger — still had a year of high school lacrosse left to play.

“I’m super open-minded about everything and age is not a factor,” Amonte Hiller said. “We want to put the best team together of kids who are going to play well together for that two weeks.”

The application for tryouts for the 2024 U.S. women’s U20 team opened last month and remains open through April 14, 2023. The tryouts will take place from July 7-9, 2023 at USA Lacrosse headquarters in Sparks, Md.

As a player, Amonte Hiller helped the U.S. capture the World Cup in 1997 and 2001 and earned all-world honors in helping the U.S. to a silver medal finish in 2005. Amonte Hiller’s 35 career goals and 67 career points in World Cup play both rank third all-time in U.S. history. She was inducted into the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 2012 as a truly great player.

The 1997 World Cup took place in Japan and this will be the first World Lacrosse championship to be held in Asia since that World Cup. Amonte Hiller has fond memories of her playing experience in Japan.

“It was definitely really cool to see a culture that was very dissimilar to the United States and to experience that,” Amonte Hiller said. “In Japan, there was an incredible buzz around athletics in general and the sport of lacrosse too. We had tons of fans, and it was a really, really great experience overall.”

Amonte Hiller, a four-time All-American and two-time national champion as a player at Maryland, has been the head coach at Northwestern since 2002 and has built one of the sport’s most dominant programs. She has led the school to 18 NCAA tournament berths entering the 2023 season. Under her leadership, Northwestern has won 49 NCAA tournament games, the most in the sport’s history, and seven national championships, the second highest total in the sport’s history.

Amonte Hiller will work with USA Lacrosse staff in the coming weeks to name her coaching and support staff.

The U.S. women’s national teams train and play using best-in-class products from Nike Lacrosse (apparel and footwear), DJO (sports bracing) and game-changing, high-performance equipment from Cascade/Maverik, Gait Lacrosse and STX.

In addition to these partners, Gatorade, MedStar Health, National Center for Safety Initiatives and Stryker are official sponsors of the U.S. national team program. Team training is also aided by products from Athletic Republic.

About USA Lacrosse

USA Lacrosse, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation, is a Recognized Sports Organization of the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee. As the governing body of men’s and women’s lacrosse in the United States, USA Lacrosse leads the U.S. National Teams Program and establishes universal standards. With more than 400,000 members across the country, USA Lacrosse unites the community of players, coaches, officials, parents, and program leaders. Working together, we inspire participation, enrich the athlete experience, and support the growth of the sport.