Sports seem to have taken over my life. I currently play varsity ice hockey and lacrosse and they are a large part of who I am.

Hockey--I started playing hockey when I was eight years old and only cause may brother had wanted to. One day my dad just put us in the car and we had no idea where we were headed until we arrived at an ice rink. My brother was excited, but I was not so thrilled as I had never played before and was sent out onto the ice being the only girl. I was furious at my dad that day, but today I cannot thank him enough. Hockey has become such a big part of my life, I can’t imagine not playing. I played on a boys team my first couple years and then when I turned twelve I joined a girl’s team, the Washington Little Capitals. This was my first real experience on a serious team. We traveled all along the east coast from Florida to New Hampshire. During my Little Caps career I often played on two of the different teams of different age groups. I was often asked to play up and sometimes with the U19 team. I led the team and improved significantly up until my sophomore year when I was invited to attend the North American Hockey Academy in Stowe, Vermont. However, it wasn’t until my junior year that I was ready to attend. Here I was able to compete at a high level that was not easily found in Maryland. I went away from October to March to play but was still able to attend my high school in Maryland in the off-season. My junior year proved to be better then my senior year but I was still able to find a spot here at Elmira College. I now play on the varsity hockey team and have had many memorable experiences so far as we have gone to the frozen four my first two years and play in the finals my first and semi's my second year.

Lacrosse-- I started playing lacrosse a couple years after I started hockey. I played throughout middle school on recreational teams. In high school I played on the JV team my freshman year and Varsity the following three years. Lacrosse has always been what I considered my “fun” sport. My main sport was hockey so I didn’t have any time to play lacrosse in the off-season. It seems to come naturally though, as I am able to pick up a stick the day before tryout or practice each year and do just fine. I have continued my lacrosse career here at Elmira as well and have been rather successful thus far. I wasn’t going to play initially but I couldn’t picture myself without lacrosse either and ended up earning the title Rookie of the Year in empire 8 conference last year.

 

Field Hockey-- I had always wanted to play field hockey but my dad had always told me I couldn’t because it conflicted with ice hockey. It wasn’t until my sophomore year in high school that I got my chance. I had decided I wanted to play that summer, but it wasn’t until the day before tryouts that I called up one of my friends and convinced her to teach me how. For some reason I still went to tryouts after only about an hours worth of practice the day before and I guess the coach saw something in me because even though I had no idea what the positions or rules were, I made the varsity team. This was probably the sport I was the best at yet I didn’t end up playing here because it would have been too much. Even though it was awful to watch I had the most fun playing this sport. Sadly I didn’t get to play in playoffs of my junior or senior year because I went away to the North American Hockey Academy and it cut me short a few games each year. However I don’t think I could have written a better ending to my field hockey career. We were playing our biggest rival who we had not beaten in seventeen years and I was suppose to leave for school in Vermont that night directly from the game. I scored the game-winning goal in overtime in my final game against our rival; it is one I’ll never forget.