Coming in new to Fieldston last year, Lily Saal (IV) quickly made a name for herself in the Fieldston sports community. As a tri-varsity athlete during her freshman year, Lily has played varsity field hockey, basketball and softball on Fieldston teams. This year she plays center mid on the varsity field hockey team.
Lily had never played field hockey before stepping onto the field on the first day of preseason, but that didn’t stop her from quickly becoming a very strong player. Lily had played many different sports in the years prior, and wanted to try something different that fall. “As we moved through the season, I realized that I really loved playing it,” she says, and that motivated her to improve and give the sport her all.
Lily had originally been placed on JV, but right before Homecoming, she was moved up to varsity. “That day was really special for me,” she said. She had worked for that moment for a while, and she felt like she needed to prove her worth as a freshman on varsity; “Freshman year was really scrappy. I was fighting for a spot on varsity… and then I was fighting for playing time, fighting to prove myself to everyone.” Now that she is a sophomore, she feels less of that pressure, but still wants to show the upperclassmen that she belongs on the team.
When asked about the relationship between her and her teammates, as well as Coach Toth, Lily describes the close bond that everyone on the team shares. “It’s a huge team, but it’s a good environment,” she says. Members of the team are always saying hi to each other in the hallways, whether they’re on JV or varsity. Lily also explains the close relationship she has with Coach Toth; “she knows when I need to be yelled at, but she also knows when I need a confidence boost.” The friendship she shares with her teammates is part of what makes being on the team so fun.
Before this school year, Lily spent the summer in numerous field hockey camps and programs to prepare for the season. During the season Lily has been asked about her goals and impressive skill set, which she credits to the work that she put in this summer, “what you do everyday will pay off.” While describing the WC Eagles program that she spent 4 days doing this summer, she recalled an interaction that she had with an older athlete. In the middle of the game she “completely missed the pass… a rookie mistake,” and the other girl was furious. Instead of letting the older girl’s reaction discourage her, Lily used it as an incentive to work even harder and improve. She truly believes that playing alongside and against more experienced players makes her a better field hockey player.
When she was little Lily wanted to play in the NFL, but after her season playing field hockey freshman year, her long term goal has shifted to playing collegiate field hockey. She “definitely [has] a goal in mind” for her future and one aspect that has never changed is her objective to play a college sport. Due to her recent success in the game, she has focused on field hockey to make her dream a reality. The time and dedication she has given to field hockey is clear. When asked about what a typical practice looked like she explained that while they had to share the field with other teams, “[she] likes to go early [and she] likes to stay late.” However, balancing her sports commitments and school work has been a challenge. Since she stays at school until at least 6pm every day to train and compete, managing her time between practice and school work has been an adjustment. “It’s hard to balance…because even though school is important, sports are more fun so you need to keep your priorities in check.”
When asked about her favorite moment of this season, Lily was, “tied with two,” the homecoming game and a season game against Riverdale. Describing the homecoming game, Lily said that the energy from the bleachers encouraged her to push harder. “Homecoming is just different in itself,” Lily explained. It wasn’t just Lily that felt the energy of homecoming, all of her teammates including those who didn’t get much playing time felt the shift in energy. Smiling while remembering the moment, Lily explained her sophomore year homecoming memory. Tied in the fourth quarter she received the ball at a sprint, “[her] brain was on autopilot, [she wasn’t] even thinking about what to do” and scored the winning goal 8 minutes into the 4th quarter. Tearing up as she resumed her defensive position she felt that, “all that hard work [she] put in over the summer really paid off.”
The Homecoming game wasn’t her only highlight of the season. A tough game against Riverdale went into double overtime, where Lily again scored the winning goal. She described this goal as exhilarating when “that’s how you win the game. It goes into the back of the net and that’s it.” Afterwards all of her teammates rushed the field and celebrated the win together. Only a sophomore, Lily has scored in most of the games this season, which makes these two goals more meaningful to her because of the positive memories attached to them. While Lily loves the sport itself, the community and environment surrounding it mean the most to her.
Even though sports take up much of her time, Lily also loves reading and writing (she is a sports editor-in-training for the Fieldston News!), listening to music, biking and hanging out with her friends. The skills she has learned throughout her time playing sports don’t only apply to the game –Lily has also used them in her life outside of field hockey. She describes how she is very competitive and can have a temper, and sports “definitely brings that out.” Lily says that she has been working on controlling her anger with her teammates and her coach, and that it has helped her handle these emotions off the field as well. She’s, “been working on being more positive,” on getting less upset, being nicer to her teammates and being more patient, all of which can be taken into her everyday life.
We can’t wait to see what Lily brings to the sports world next!
