SWAMPSCOTT — The Swampscott field hockey team is back at Blocksidge Field, getting ready for the fall season. Longtime coach Courtney Russo, who was recently inducted into the Connecticut Field Hockey Hall of Fame, is looking forward to another season on the sideline as she hopes to guide the program back into the postseason.
The Big Blue – following a 12-6-2 record and a trip to the round of 16 last year – have lost six key seniors to graduation, but Russo is confident in the young group she has.
“Last year, we had a lot of young players who were freshmen. They worked really hard during their freshmen years to learn the culture here. I’m looking forward to seeing how some of the younger players will step up into some of the holes that we have left behind the graduating class,” Russo said. “I’m excited to see a lot of the growth the team had from last year and build on that for this year.”
This year, commanding the ship are two who lead from the back in Maisie Russo and Chloe Puzzo.
“My two captains are returning as seniors and I look to them to build a strong defensive role,” Russo said.
Swampscott returns the majority of its defense, which Russo hopes to lean on as a strength.
“We have a fair amount of our defense coming back. We’re excited to be able to build off that. We have our goalie returning in Lilah Caplan, which is great,” Russo said. “We have two strong midfielders returning. We’ll have strong endurance in the midfield and I’m looking forward to having some of the rising sophomores to help fill some of the holes. We want to build off these strengths and fill the gaps with the players who were on varsity last year who got to have some meaningful minutes, but this year, they’ll have more significant minutes and really carve out a role.”
What’s helped make Swampscott successful across the past few years? Well, for Russo, it’s been a joint-effort between her and assistant coach Hadley Woodfin to put players in optimal positions.
“Over the last three or four years, we’ve had some really nice pushes into the postseason. As a coaching staff, I have a really strong assistant coach in Hadley Woodfin. We really take a look at what we have at the beginning of the season. We take the field hockey talent we have and the raw athletic talent and try to put those players in a position that best suits them,” Russo said. “If we have someone who has strong endurance, we think, ‘Where can we most use that as a strength?’ If we have someone with a stronger hit skill or an ability to play an advanced defense better, we kind of put the player in that particular position that will suit their skill. All of our players have strengths and weaknesses, but we just try to look at the player individually and put them in the best position to succeed.”
Having been a coach for more than a decade, Russo said it’s the pride of Swampscott that makes her enjoy coaching.
“The Big Blue Pride,” she said. “There’s a lot of pride in our community and our school. We have a lot of support within our school and our town. The parents in town really support the program. I think that’s been my favorite part about being over at Swampscott – the community support we have for Big Blue.”
With the first regular season game slated for Tuesday, Sept. 3 at 4:30 p.m. against St. Mary’s (Lynn) on home turf, Russo eyed a few games that stood out to her.
“All of our conference games are fun. There are so many teams and our conference really got competitive over the years. We really try to focus on all of our conference games because we’ve got conference games that range from Division 1 all the way to Division 4,” Russo said. “We’re always excited to play in our conference because I feel like that prepares us.”
And, of course, “We always look forward to playing Marblehead. The players will have that circled on their calendars – for sure.”
