Community High School sophomore Mairead Erhardt adjusts her face mask before stepping onto the scalding turf that makes up the stadium at Huron High School, and begins to warm up prior to Huron Field Hockey’s varsity contest versus Chelsea.

The field hockey team is going through a period of great change. Former varsity coach Jamie Cohen retired last year, allowing new head coach, Kelly Perkins, to usher in a new era of continued excellence. Huron Field Hockey has been a staple of excellence in the field hockey community, winning the state title three out of the last five years, and Erhardt believes that Perkins can continue that trend. “[Perkins] is really great. Kelly’s attitude is that we’re in it to win it,” Erhardt said. Perkins certainly has the credentials for the job, as she played division one field hockey in college at University of the Pacific, and is well acquainted with Huron after coaching the Huron Women’s Lacrosse team last year.

On top of losing their former head coach, the field hockey team also said goodbye to 15 seniors last year, an astounding number, when you consider that Huron’s Varsity Field Hockey team has typically consisted of 18 to 22 players. To exacerbate the loss of nearly their entire starting lineup, the team also has no seniors this year, leaving a void in team leadership. “Having no seniors on the team has changed the program,” Erhardt said. “For example, some fun traditions have not been carried on into this year. Last year we bought a pig as a team pet, but this year we will not be purchasing a team pet. Also, it is a tradition that we go to Denny’s for breakfast one morning during pre-season, but that didn’t happen this year because there weren’t enough upperclassmen that could drive everyone there.” The loss of this leadership has forced other members of the team to step up into bigger roles on the team. Juniors Sara Souweidane and Rachel Kerr have become captains, and all members of the team have had to pick up the slack in the leadership department.

Despite these hardships, Huron still retains a strong young core of talented field hockey players, including Erhardt and junior Maria Hill-Carruthers. “From a skills perspective, I’d say this year and last year’s team are pretty similar, if not a little better this year,” Erhardt said.

With plenty of talent and skill on the roster, it is clear that new coach Perkins has all the tools necessary to make another assault on the Southeastern Conference and to look ahead towards the state championship.