This year’s field hockey season ended in a 0-18-0 record, and only two goals scored. However, those two goals brought a multitude of excitement and the team together. Compared to past seasons, this record was a change for Old Saybrook Field Hockey. After losing 10 seniors following the successful 2024 season, the field hockey starting varsity lineup consisted of 7 freshmen, and the team had only 5 returning players. One freshman, Piper Barter, proved that an all-defeated season ,staying positive, and having fun can all coexist. Barter has been playing field hockey for 2 years and started every varsity game this year. She reports “the gap from playing against girls who are my age and younger, to playing against girls who are 2 or 3 years older than me,” was a struggle for her. “The seriousness of it, too. High school is when it starts to get serious for sports.” Within the struggles, Barter was able to overcome it, despite the lack of success on the scoreboard. “I would try to remind myself that it’s okay, I’m only a freshman, and if I screw up on a play, it’s not the end of the world.” Staying positive like this was a must for Barter and many other Saybrook players. She stresses the fact that “you have to look at the good plays…the score doesn’t reflect playing skills.” Even looking forward to the little things, and finding the joy in what she can have fun with was a goal for Barter. “We had the most fun during games – any night game, I had fun at those.”
Senior Kathryn DeMeulemeester, on the other hand, has been a part of this team for 4 years, has been playing field hockey for 6 years, and has been on varsity for 3 years. After dedicating years of her life to field hockey, DeMeulemeester said her biggest struggle this year was “probably the start of a new team,” and how the shift from mostly upperclassmen to mostly underclassmen was stressful. With hard games and frustration inevitably comes difficulty with staying positive. “The second half would be lower energy, and less hard work,” she says. How she battled that was similar to her teammate, Barter. “Focusing a lot on what good happened during the game instead of focusing on what we did bad, and it [gave the girls] more motivation to be better.” Field hockey participated in a fun olympic game towards the end of the season before their last game. The team split up into two teams and dressed up as characters of their liking. They played a series of games, and the winner got a prize. Challenges consisted of longest drive, longest air dribble, and highest aerial, to name a few. Similar to Barter, DeMeulemeester worked hard to focus on the little things. “I liked the olympic game, the competition was good for us, it gave us an opportunity for competition.”
