Whether she’s in Sagehen blue or Australian gold, Hannah Gough ’25 commands attention on the lacrosse field.
The Adelaide, Australia, native concluded her four years at Pomona an All-American and three-time first-team all-conference honoree. The Sagehens won 76 games with Gough patrolling the midfield, never lost to rival Claremont-Mudd-Scripps and advanced twice to the NCAA Division III Elite Eight.
Her Sagehen career complete, Gough has her sight set on making the Australian national team bound for the 2026 World Cup in Tokyo and the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
“It’s scary,” she says of vying for a roster spot. “There’s a very real possibility it doesn’t happen, but you don’t know unless you try.”
A one-way flight
Gough uprooted her life 18 months into the pandemic to attend Pomona.
With Australia still very much in lockdown in 2021, she says she had to sign a declaration before leaving for Claremont that she understood it was uncertain when she could return home.
She landed in Southern California with no more than two suitcases.
“I’ve always been someone to take risks,” she says.
Gough started playing lacrosse at 7, and within a few years she was in Australia’s club circuit, playing, at times, against adult women.
“I loved the intensity” of the sport, she says. “I loved that I could be aggressive. It’s quite a physical sport and I loved that about it.”
At 16, Gough outlasted hundreds of young women to earn a spot on the 2019 Under-19 Australian Women’s Team. A subsequent tournament in Canada pit Gough and her countrywomen against teams from the host country, the U.S. and the U.K.
Ahead of the tournament, the Aussies trained at Loyola University Maryland. Gough says she decided then she wanted to attend college and play lacrosse in the States.
“I wanted an equitable balance of getting a really good education and playing my sport.”
Aussie, Aussie, Aussie
Gough, an economics and international relations double major, earned myriad personal accolades across her first three years in Sagehen blue.
In January, she returned home to play for Australia at the 2025 Asia-Pacific Women’s Lacrosse Championship. The Aussies took silver, punching their ticket to the 2026 World Cup.
Gough subsequently led the Sagehens to the NCAA Division III Sweet 16.
“What I’m so grateful for is the energy, camaraderie and silliness we had at practice,” she says. “Lacrosse was always so much fun, and that kept me in love with it.”
In August, Gough was an alternate for Australia at The World Games in Chengdu, China.
She later received an invitation to attend two World Cup trial camps this winter.
She’ll soon play for the Melbourne Makos in a major league lacrosse tournament Down Under, her performance across the three-day event a contributing factor to whether she’s selected for Australia’s 2026 Olympic training squad.
Gough’s trotted the globe this fall while working for a consulting startup in San Francisco. In her role, she collaborates with safety and policy teams at leading tech companies to solve their emerging challenges.
“I’m really lucky to have found a job that’s flexible and conducive to still training,” she says.
Gough should have a clearer picture of her immediate future in January, when Australia finalizes its World Cup roster and begins whittling the field of Olympic team hopefuls.
“The Olympics are what every athlete dreams of,” she says. “There’s so much pride and so much love and excitement in playing for your country. It’s not something a lot of people get to do.”