Last weekend, nationally ranked No. 9 field hockey (7-4, 4-2 NESCAC) split its two games, earning a hard fought 3-1 victory over No. 19 Wesleyan (8-5, 4-4 NESCAC) on Saturday before falling on Sunday by a score of 2-1 in an overtime loss to No. 7 Tufts (10-3, 7-1 NESCAC). After their win over Wesleyan and against No. 14 Amherst (7-5, 4-4 NESCAC) on Sept. 30, the Ephs have clinched this year’s Little 3 Title.
Last weekend, nationally ranked No. 9 field hockey (7-4, 4-2 NESCAC) split its two games, earning a hard-fought 3-1 victory over No. 19 Wesleyan (8-5, 4-4 NESCAC) on Saturday before falling on Sunday by a score of 2-1 in an overtime loss to No. 7 Tufts (10-3, 7-1 NESCAC). After their win over Wesleyan and against No. 14 Amherst (7-5, 4-4 NESCAC) on Sept. 30, the Ephs have clinched this year’s Little 3 Title.
It’s been a strong season for the Ephs so far, according to co-captain Molly Hellman ’24. “We’ve been doing really well,” she said. “Everyone’s really stepped up into new roles and positions, and our record is pretty strong.”
Head coach Alix Barrale ’93 agreed, highlighting some of the intangible qualities this year’s team possesses that have led them to success. “[They’ve] been very resilient, gritty, determined,” Barrale said. “[But] at the same time, [they’ve been] really supportive and really fun.”
Barrale talked about the importance of enjoying the game and having fun while competing. “I tend to say fun gets a bad rap, [but] I think it’s important that we have fun while we’re out there,” she said. “Having fun is super important — if you’re winning but … not having fun, then that’s not a win.”
This season, the team’s roster features a host of younger talent after graduating 10 seniors from the 2022 team, which made a run all the way to the NCAA semifinals before bowing out to Johns Hopkins. According to Hellman, this year’s team has been focused from the start on forging their own path. “Identifying that we’re not the same team as we were, and it’s not going to be handed to us, was something we thought about really early on,” she said. “One of our mottos is to earn everything — fight for every game, fight for every ball.”
Such a large roster turnover meant the team had a bit of a learning curve once games started earlier this fall, Natalia Nolan ’26 said. “We’ve been learning how to play with each other, and we’ve been able to use that to get stronger as the season goes along,” she said.
Barrale also identified the importance of adapting prior years’ strategies as something the coaching staff has done to try and help the team progress. “We had to change our approach and what we do in practice based on what our needs are, focus[ing] a little bit more on skills and breaking down the game, and I think it’s helped over the last few games,” she said.
All four of the Ephs’ losses this year have come against teams ranked within the top 20 of the National Field Hockey Coaches Association’s National Coaches Poll, and three out of the four have been within the top 10. All four of these losses were suffered by one goal.
Nolan, Hellman, and Barrale all emphasized that executing for the full length of the game would be the key to the Ephs’ future success. Nolan pointed to the Tufts loss as extremely tough given how close the Ephs played them all game. “We have [until] the last second, which I think we were all trying to do, but we need to enforce that because every second counts, as we’ve seen,” Nolan said.
The Ephs gain no favors from facing some of the toughest competition in the country during their NESCAC regular season schedule. Nine out of 11 teams in the conference currently sit within the top 25 teams in the country. “We have one of the strongest strength of schedules in the nation, and the hope is [that] even if you didn’t get the results you wanted, somewhere down the line, it comes back and helps you in the postseason,” Barrale said.
The road ahead does not get any easier for the Ephs, as in this upcoming final week of the regular season, they square off in a three-game flurry with No. 22 Hamilton (7-5, 3-5 NESCAC), No. 21 Trinity (8-5, 3-5), and No. 10 Bates (8-4, 4-3) before the regular season finale against their toughest opponent yet — defending National Champions and the prevailing first-ranked team in the nation, Middlebury (13-0, 8-0 NESCAC).
Still, Hellman said the Ephs try to approach every game in the same way, no matter the opponent. “One mantra we always say is that it’s not who we play, it’s how we play,” she said. “It really is anyone’s game — it comes down to little moments [and] just stringing those together.”
The Ephs currently sit in third place in the NESCAC, just half a game ahead of Bowdoin and Bates. They can secure home-field advantage in the opening round of the NESCAC tournament by remaining in the top four seeds. With each win comes added probability that the Ephs’ season extends further into the postseason. “I love this team — I don’t want it to end, so we keep saying we want to earn more,” Barrale said. “[W]ith each win, we can earn more time together. So that is the goal.”
