October 18, 2007 Issue                                       

©2007 The Chestnut Hill Local

The Mount’s national standout Reinprecht picks Princeton
by TOM UTESCHER

Mount St. Joseph Academy’s Katie Reinprecht, center, knocs the ball away from an Upper Merion opponent.  (Photo by Jimmy J. Pack Jr.)

The list of 33 field hockey players who make up the 2007-2008 USA National Squad and Developmental Squad contains an anomaly. Along with current college stars and seasoned international competitors in their mid and late 20s, the roster includes the name of just one high school athlete; Mount St. Joseph Academy’s Katie Reinprecht.

Part of a very talented senior class, Reinprecht has helped lift the Magic from first-round elimination in the 2004 state tournament to Class AAA State Runner-up in 2006 and a top 10 national ranking this fall. The preeminent college programs lined up to recruit her, and recently the senior midfielder ended their quest by verbally committing to follow her older sister, Sarah, to Princeton University.

The eldest of the Reinprecht sisters (a third, Julie, is a junior at the Mount), Sarah was the Ivy League Rookie of the Year in 2005 and a First Team All-Ivy selection last fall.

“I was able to get her perspective and really get a feel of what it’s like there,” said Katie, a National Honor Society scholar. “I could see how much she liked it.”

She’d also been seriously interested in the University of Virginia and in North Carolina, and she explained, “Visiting the schools, talking to the players helped me form an opinion. The team at Princeton had a lot to do with my decision; I really respected the heart they have.”

In junior national teams programs, Reinprecht had already been under the tutelage of Princeton head coach Kristen Holmes-Winn.

“I love the way she coaches the game, and when I played for her I liked her style of interacting with her athletes,” the MSJ standout said.

Under Holmes-Winn, the Tigers have regained control of the Ivy League (Penn’s 2004 team, captained by Mount grad Katie Murphy, won the Ivy title that year) and are striving to make a splash on a larger national scale. Two weeks ago, Princeton knocked off third-ranked Connecticut.

Although NCAA rules prohibit Holmes-Winn from commenting on Reinprecht’s verbal commitment, Mount coach Lois Weber is free to sing her praises.

“She’s a special, gifted athlete and she’s the consummate team player as well,” said Weber, who coaches the Magic along with Reinprecht’s mother, Tina. “Her possession skills are excellent and she distributes the ball well. She has great ball control and when there’s pressure on her she’s able to dodge or eliminate the other player and pass the ball with pace to an open teammate. It’s one thing to do those things against so-so teams, but she’s able to elevate her play and perform that way against some of the best teams in the country.”

As one of nine athletes on the USA Developmental Squad, Reinprecht could be called on top move up to the National Squad, the pool of roughly two-dozen players from which the 2008 Olympic Team will be selected.

U.S. head coach Lee Bodimeade, a former men’s field hockey silver medalist for Australia, has been impressed with what he’s seen from the high school senior.

“She’s a very skillful player; she’s very composed on the ball,” he said. “She has very good vision when she’s carrying the ball, that’s what appealed to us.”

The “heart” Reinprecht admired in the Princeton team is not lacking in her own make-up, according to the U.S. Team mentor.

“She has a determination on the field even when she’s coming up against players who are ten years her senior,” he observed. “She doesn’t take a step back. She’s prepared to battle and to understand the game well enough to be able to compete.”

Weber, Reinprecht’s coach at the Mount, was also her Phys Ed instructor in grade school, and she recalled, “The first day I saw her in gym class, I said to the other teachers, ‘the best athlete in the school is in first grade.’ “

In addition to humbling male classmates in pick-up football games out in the schoolyard (a one-handed catch over her left shoulder is still spoken of), she played organized hockey, soccer, basketball, and lacrosse. When she moved on to Mount St. Joseph, she continued to play club soccer at a high level in the respected FC Delco program. During a sporting weekend in Virginia Beach the summer before last, she ran back and forth between the regional soccer championships and a “Futures” field hockey tourney.

Ultimately, the choice between the two sports was clear, because to say that field hockey is a way of life around the Reinprecht household may be an understatement. Tina Reinprecht, who played at Ithaca College and was an assistant coach at Yale, is the founder of the Mystx Field Hockey Club, whose teams have won numerous national titles. The program has trained players from the Mount, Germantown Academy, Springside, Penn Charter and Norwood Fontbonne, in addition to top talents from many public school teams.

Responding to a familiar question, Katie asserted, “I’ve never minded having my mother as a coach. I like it; I can bounce ideas off her at any time. I’ve also learned a lot by seeing Sarah go through things ahead of me, and I learn things from Julie, too, even though she’s younger.”  Weber said that at the Mount, Reinprecht quickly emerged as “A very strong player in a very strong class. She makes our job as coaches easier because of the knowledge she brings onto the field.”

Reinprecht’s fellow senior co-captain, goalkeeper Kieran Sweeney, is a four-year starter who has 52 career shutouts to date. The other veteran upperclassmen are forwards Laura Iacovetti and Ally McLaren, midfielders Brit Gavin and Carolyn Cabrey, back Colleen McGowan, and reserve goalie Caitlin O’Donnell.

Reinprecht related, “Our first year, we had more freshmen on varsity than there’d been before. We didn’t actually say to ourselves that in a few years we’d be contending for a state title, but in the back of your mind, you wanted that. I love playing here because everyone works so hard, and the confidence we have in ourselves has gotten us up to a new level.”

Two years ago, the Magic lost by a 4-0 count in the first round of the state tournament, falling to an Emmaus High School team that would finish up as undefeated state champion and the top-ranked team in the United States. A reporter from Emmaus’ hometown paper wrote of the MSJ sophomore: “Throughout the game, Katie [Reinprecht] appeared to be the most talented player on the field.”

In 2006, the Magic won their first PIAA District 1 championship, then went through to the finals of the state tournament before suffering a 2-1 setback against 29-0 Lower Dauphin High School. So far this fall, the only blot on the Mount’s 17-1 ledger is a 3-2 loss to pre-season national number one Wyoming Seminary.

Having rolled through the Athletic Association of Catholic Academies regular season at 14-0, the Magic are now starting in on what they hope will be a long journey through the league, district, and state playoffs. Whatever the outcome, it won’t be more than a month before the team’s seniors, including Katie Reinprecht, will be making their final appearance in a Mount St. Joseph uniform.

“We’re so fortunate to have her in our program,” Weber acknowledged. “She’s a once-in-a-lifetime player.”