Germantown Academy's senior co-captains for field hockey, Maddie Cooper (left) and Colleen Carrigan. (Photo by Tom Utescher)

by Tom Utescher

Germantown Academy's field hockey program showed steady progress in the first two years under head coach Jackie Connard (GA '06), enjoying successful Inter-Ac League outcomes against teams on this side of the Schuylkill while also becoming more competitive against the longtime Main Line powers.

The Patriots believe their climb will continue in Connard's third season, although a little bit of rebuilding will be taking place due to the departure of last year's strong senior class. Six players have moved on, including several multi-year starters who will be playing in college.

Colleen Carrigan and Maddie Cooper are the senior co-captains for GA this season. Carrigan has decided to play at Wesleyan University, and her classmate Hannah Santos, the Patriots' veteran goaltender, has committed to Stanford. The other seniors on this year's squad are Isabelle McFadden and Emma Robinson.

A relatively small junior class consists of Maddie O'Hara, Sophie Worrell, and one of the top players in the region, Sammy Popper. A fixture on the U.S. Under-19 team since she was 14 years old, Popper made a verbal commitment to Princeton University as a freshman.

As a newly-enrolled freshman in 2016, Maddi Ota immediately fit right into the Patriots' line-up, and her classmates Catherine McFadden, Grace Pacitti, and Jordan Roche also played with the varsity last fall. Two other 10th-graders, Annabel Brewer and Ella Henry, are in the mix this year.

At this early stage of the season, the freshman class is being represented by Sophie Towne, who has moved up from the GA middle school, and by a new arrival, Katie Shapiro.

Helping out Coach Connard on the sidelines once more will be Brooke Watson, a mainstay among the cadre of GA varsity coaches.