Youthful demographic for SCH field hockey

Posted 8/28/17

For 2017, the SCH field hockey team captains are (from left) Grace Yang, Kianah Watson and Mackenzie Ramsey. (Photo by Tom Utescher) by Tom Utescher After losing a whopping 10 players from its 2015 …

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Youthful demographic for SCH field hockey

Posted

For 2017, the SCH field hockey team captains are (from left) Grace Yang, Kianah Watson and Mackenzie Ramsey. (Photo by Tom Utescher)

by Tom Utescher

After losing a whopping 10 players from its 2015 field hockey roster, Springside Chestnut Hill Academy wasn't dealt quite as hard a blow by this spring's graduation, when five Blue Devils received their walking papers.

Nevertheless, SCH has a youthful group facing the 2017 campaign, with only Mackenzie Ramsey and Grace Yang representing the current senior class at the school. They will both serve as team captains this season, along with junior Kianah Watson.

Savannah Sweitzer is among the other returning 11th graders, and this year her twin sister Delaney will be back on the field after recovering from knee surgery. Catie Brook, Sarah Edelson, and Colebe Oliver are also back as juniors, and their classmate Riley Redpath has decided to pick up a hockey stick on her school's behalf after wielding a tennis racquet for the Blue Devils as a freshman and sophomore.

Erin Fennessy and Maggie Pearson are sophomores who are both veterans of the 2016 team, and so is goalie Shannon McNally, who plays club hockey for the well-known W.C. Eagles organization. McNally's understudy in the cage this fall will be Charlotte Reitmeyer, the cousin of former SCH keeper Frankie Reitmeyer ('16).

There is a second freshman who is the sibling of a 2016 SCH grad, Lexi Prochniak's younger sister Brooke. Also expected to see varsity action, Ashley Lynch and Ainsley Rexford belong to the 18-member ninth-grade class for hockey, as well.

Katie Mersky, who was recently named Upper School Dean of Student Life at Springside Chestnut Hill, is back for her fifth season as head coach of the Blue Devil stick squad. Last year's varsity assistant departed, so longtime SCH teacher and coach Steph Mill will be moving up from the middle school hockey program to fill that role.