St. Mary’s High School has a storied tradition of athletics, and the school has brought home championships by the dozens over the past 20 years. Now, the Spartans are set to welcome another varsity program into the fold as the new St. Mary’s field hockey team gets set to take the field Thursday afternoon.
“It’s an incredibly exciting time for the team, we’ve been itching to get started,” said Spartans head coach Victoria Ault, who helped found the program along with assistant coach Farrah Parent. “The girls have been working really hard and they’re ready to begin this journey.”
The field hockey team at St. Mary’s will be competing in its first varsity season this fall after starting out as a club team last year. The team went 6-5-1 in club play against junior varsity opponents, and the majority of the players from that club team have returned for the inaugural varsity season.
“We obviously know that the varsity level is a totally different game than what we’ve been playing,” said Ault, who also serves as an assistant coach on the state champion St. Mary’s girls basketball team. “The girls are definitely working to get up to that level and they know that they’re going to be playing catch-up with a lot of teams, but they’re ready and excited for the challenge.”
Almost all of the players who have returned from that club team are seniors. Pejae Parent, Janella Diowo, Achan Wol, Shannon Lovett, Makayla McGrath, Gina Palermo and Ann Romelus will all be looked upon as key contributors in this inaugural season. Parent, Wol and Lovett have been named team captains. Gianna Korisianos, Jody Kirby and Yirsy Queliz are also returning from the club team.
“They might not have experience at the varsity level, but they have experience playing and working together,” said Ault.
And as if getting started on its first varsity season wasn’t hard enough, St. Mary’s also has to deal with a host of new rule changes under the latest safety modifications. The biggest item on the list of new modifications — changing the number of players on the field from 11-on-11 to 7-on-7. The Spartans have also been brushing up on their technical skills on the field during practices, which started just over a week and a half ago. They also held a scrimmage against Bishop Fenwick, which was eye-opening on a lot of levels.
“We’ve been working on our conditioning, that’s for sure,” said Ault. “We’ve been doing a lot of skill work and we’ve been working on our communication and spacing. It’s been a bit of a challenge and we know it will continue to be, but the girls have been working hard every day. The scrimmage was also eye-opening and hopefully we’ll be able to continue to develop from that.”
St. Mary’s opens up its inaugural season on Thursday afternoon (4) with a game on the road against Bishop Feehan.
“It’s just so exciting to get started with this season and become a varsity program,” said Ault. “We’re incredibly excited for the future and we hope to continue to build ourselves into a competitive team.”
