News Item
"The Journal News" featured Pace Setters Field Hockey in "Field hockey: Pace University, with former local HS stars, is ranked second in country"
"The Journal News" featured Pace Setters Field Hockey in "Field hockey: Pace University, with former local HS stars, is ranked second in country"
Former Section 1 High School field hockey players talk about playing for nationally ranked Pace University.
One was told by her coaches that her new major was incompatible with playing on their Division I college team.
So, she transferred.
Another wasn’t looking at the school and wanted to also play lacrosse. Then, winter of her senior year in high school, she blew her knee out.
Her plans changed.
Lakeland’s Mia Lennon, an All-American in high school whose desire to become a nurse ended her field hockey career at UMass after just one season, and Mahopac’s Kim Schiera, who tore her ACL playing basketball, ultimately landed very close to home in Pleasantville, on the Pace field hockey team.
Neither could be happier.
Their team is just four years old. But thinking of it as a lesser program would be wrong.
Very wrong.
Lennon, Schiera and four other former local high school stars – Jane Kasparian of Mahopac, Carly Corbett of Brewster, Sarah Bard of Lakeland and Danielle Merante of Panas – are part of a 25-player squad ranked second in the country among Division II teams.
The 17-1 Setters host Massachusetts-based Assumption College Tuesday in the opening round of the Northeast 10 Conference Tournament.
Assumption handed the Setters their only loss of the season – a 3-1 setback on Sept. 15. Pace beat Assumption 4-1 on Oct. 9.
Rapid ascension
Players are hungry for a win and hungry, beyond that, for the conference title.
But no one is pretending they’re not letting their minds wander just a bit to the possibility of a national crown.
“They want it but we have a lot to go,” said three-year coach Kayte Kinsley. “Why we’ve been so successful is they really do take it one step at a time. Their priority is the next team we’re playing. In turn, they’re playing at the highest level.”
That wasn’t always the case.
Bard, a senior, was part of Lakeland’s amazing, 10-year winning streak against New York teams and nine-year state-championship run that ended Sunday in a one-goal loss in the state finals.
The only loss Bard weathered while wearing Lakeland green was in 2013 to Connecticut’s Darien High School.
She “learned how to lose” while a freshman Setter after deciding not to play for some D-III schools that were recruiting her and decided against trying to walk on to a D-I program.
“I knew there was the possibility we would lose a lot,” said Bard.
Indeed, Pace won just six games her freshman year.
But by last year, when she missed the bulk of the season after tearing her ACL, she knew “my senior year would be great.”
That has been true for her team and for Bard, who likes being so close to home her family can watch her games but also enjoys the full college experience of living on campus.
“Her defensive technique is above all others. She has a great ability to read the play,” Kinsley said of Bard, who’s part of a team that has scored 52 goals and yielded 15.
Bard has three of those Pace goals – all game-winners.
The sophomore defenseman Lennon, who has started every game and has five goals and six assists, receives one-on-one coaching after missing Tuesday practices for her nursing clinical.
That kind of accommodation was not available at UMass.
Smart, with a deceptive sweep, has shut down opponents’ best players, Kinsley said.
“It reminds me of Lakeland. The upperclassmen take over and are mother figures,” Lennon said, describing Pace’s team chemistry as “unreal.”
Kinsley jokes she tells Lakeland field hockey coach Sharon Sarsen, “I’ll take all of your kids. Keep them coming.”
“They’re already prepared,” she explained. “They’re ready for the level. Sars holds them to the highest level.”
Nabbing local talent and beyond
Pace dipped into Section 1’s deep talent pool from day one.
The accounting major Kasparian, an All-State player at Mahopac, was one of 12 Setter seniors who took a chance and joined the newly-launched team as freshmen.
The 5-foot, extremely quick midfielder — “She can beat literally any player. … She has been huge for us this year,” Kinsley said — said winning the NCAA championship would once have been an “insane goal.”
But the Setters’ 17-1 record doesn’t surprise her.
“We kind of expected this outcome, or at least hoped for it,” she said, pointing to the deep senior class and underclassmen who fit right in.
The freshman Merante, an All-State player at Panas, comes in off the bench, has two goals and a “ton of potential,” Kinsley said.
For Merante, another nursing major, joining a winning culture has been an adjustment.
“I never imagined playing so long into the season,” she said, smiling.
Kinsley, who was named D-II NCAA field hockey coach of the year after last year’s 15-win season, is also a local product.
Before coming to Pace, she launched Mercy College’s program, coaching there for six years.
Before that, she played on Putnam Valley’s 2005 state-champion field hockey team, then played lacrosse for Long Island’s Adelphi University.
So, she’s well attuned to local talent, although Pace’s roster extends far beyond the local area.
Its leading scorer, senior Halley Rose, is from Pennsylvania, freshman Mia Radici is from California and the roster includes sophomore Lieke van Niuwenhuizen from the Netherlands and Australian Grace Henderson, a freshman.
Players aren’t drawn by the prospect of free schooling. Two-thirds of the team is on a partial scholarship, Kinsley said, but no one is on a full athletic ride.
Still, that doesn’t seem to be a turnoff.
“I couldn’t see myself anywhere else,” said the senior Corbett.
Corbett, the team’s most versatile player (a midfielder, she has also had stints on defense and forward) and, according to Kinsley, is one of her most consistent players, terms her teammates “sisters” and a “special group” that realizes it can “really do something special.”
“We come every day to play. We’re always the hardest working team on the field,” said Schiera, whose strong off-the-bench play has Kinsley penning her in as a starter next year.
Schiera, who's studying digital cinema and film-making, could play three more years for Pace, since she was red-shirted, missing the 2017 season.
“Definitely a lot of positives came out of me hurting my knee,” Schiera said, noting, if not for that, she’d be elsewhere, playing lacrosse in addition to field hockey.
Bard’s poised to graduate with a degree in finance. But national title or no national title, her dad, Michael, is campaigning, along with Kinsley, for her to go to Pace’s grad school and use the extra year of playing eligibility last year’s knee injury gave her.
She’s tempted.
“I love it here,” Bard said.
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