2020 Season Preview

The Haverford College field hockey team stepped foot on the Swan Field turf for the first time in 2020 last week, beginning workouts on Monday, September 21. The team traded in its usual late August preseason, diving into a fall unlike any other. 

The squad is navigating the new realities of small, socially distant group sessions, as well as a campus environment marked by a hybrid of online and in-person instruction, temperature checks, and universal masking. A trio of senior captains, Allyson Lynch, Ariana Sulpizio, and Roxy Vassighi, are at the helm to help guide the team through this unprecedented and oftentimes unpredictable landscape. 

"Not having a preseason, or really a competitive fall season, takes away the organic team bonding experience. In order to combat that, the three of us had to come up with some external events to keep the team engaged with field hockey and with each other," said Vassighi. 

One of those events is the team's coffee buddies program, which helps the first-year members of the team get to know their teammates better through unstructured and socially distant meetups throughout campus. The team is also adapting its normal bevy of team activities such as movie nights into virtual activities like Zoom games and trivia. 

Last season, Haverford went 7-2 at home, its most wins on the Swan Field turf since 2012. That familiarity and comfort of campus life was key to getting back into a rhythm right away. Keeping things as routine as possible within the functional units has been a welcome challenge for the captains. 

"We are split into three groups of seven or eight each. We lift and practice with the same group," said Sulpizio. "We've only had one week, but we've focused on different things each day. We did a competition day on Wednesday, which was really nice. We treated it like a game day, and tried to make things a little more normal, with some competitive things across the groups." 

Fostering that spirit of competition and game-like atmosphere is a large part of building the culture for the three captains as the weeks go on this fall. With so many variables to juggle in daily life on campus, getting to reconnect with teammates and the game of field hockey can serve as a simple joy. 

"The energy is extremely high, everyone is really excited to get back on the field. We were used to doing our own individual skill work and hearing voices of encouragement through recordings, so it was nice to have eight other girls out there with Coach Cox and just being back on the field," said Vassighi. 

A theme that has emerged throughout the first week is gratitude and excitement for the opportunity to live, study, and practice on campus this fall, while acknowledging and adapting to the precautions that are being taken to keep the community safe. 

Vassighi added, "We played (on Wednesday) as if we were playing a game. As a senior, and feeling that this is my last season, that was such a great feeling. Everyone in my functional group, which is mainly first years, was really competitive and I love that energy. It stems from the community, everyone is just happy to be back on campus."