Nichols Middle School Field Hockey Fall 2017 Season
The following is written by Coach Kelly Rich, who did another sensational job writing this post as well as coaching our NMS Girls Field Hockey team again this year. She is such a positive person and has a tremendous influence ion our students in her coaching as well as PE teaching duties. This was another awesome group of young ladies. One can see she loves putting the time and effort to supporting these great girls and their abilities to improve at the game. I thank her, the team, the parents, Mr. Ryan Sylvia our AD, and everyone who worked so hard this year to make the NMS Girls Field Hockey team a success. Thank you.
Here is Coach Rich:
The Nichols field hockey team completed their fifth season on November 1st.
Ending with their strongest record yet, at 9-7-1, but if you ask anyone on the team they will all agree they are carrying on the work of the girls of the previous seasons. This improvement didn’t start when they returned in August, it began as soon as our 2016 season ended.
Our eight dedicated, hard working eighth graders who were entering their third season teamed up with their younger teammates all off-season with one goal, to get better.
Together the team played in a dome league all winter and spring, and then many elected to attend a field hockey camp at Stonehill College. When these thirteen players returned to tryouts in August I was impressed by how much every one of them improved, and proud of how much hard work they put in during the off-season. This includes now 7th grader Isabelle Mosley stepping up to play keeper when the team was without one. It took a while for her to fall in love with the position, but knowing her team needed her in that spot she put as much effort into learning the position as she could. Izzy’s hard work paid off with an outstanding season in goal this season, making it possible for our team to add some of those wins to our record.
Our tri-captains Hannah St. John, Allyson Rideout, and Nora Williamson lead the team this season. They got practice going each day, and did not hesitate to ask me to include some team building activities into practice to make sure all 23 girls came together as a team. After each game they wrote the recap for announcements, making sure to highlight different players, especially our keeper who doesn’t get into scoring column. The tri-captains did an excellent job leading, but all of our returning players played a part in helping our new players learn the game quickly and making sure we were successful. Whether it was at practice, halftime, or our conversation after the games; they were all eager to give feedback and compliments to each other to help our team to continue to learn and improve.
I am extremely proud of every member of the team this year, both on and off the field. I know we have big shoes to fill with losing so many amazing student-athletes to the high school, but knowing they have already begun their work on next season I know our sixth and seventh graders are ready to meet this challenge.
-- Coach Kelly Rich
