A palpable sense of joy radiates through the varsity field hockey team during a Tuesday practice. It’s not just that it’s a beautiful, sunny, and serene early September afternoon and the team has Galbraith Fields to themselves. It’s not just that the girls are finally returning to the turf, ready to defend their title after beating Middlesex to win last year’s NEPSAC Class B championship in nail-biting double overtime.
It’s not just those things. What’s exciting the group, what’s leading to cheers and collaboration and this tangible sense of pride and unity is something else: An impromptu dance contest—in five minutes. Five minutes to choreograph a routine and perform. As team manager Daryn Fox cues up “Shut Up and Dance” by Walk The Moon and the girls break off to practice, I catch up with Riley Stocker ’27, one of the team’s three captains, along with seniors Zola Piekarski ’26 and Kat Mayer ’26. For Stocker, this dance-off is all an integral part—necessary, even—to the field hockey team’s success.
“There’s just a fun, joyful spirit,” Stocker, a junior from Verona, N.J., explains just before she and junior Brooke Schlutter ’27 practice a dip, a trust-fall type move in which Stocker, laughing, catches Schlutter as she falls backwards. “We’re a family, we literally do everything together. We eat together, we lift together, we’re always just together, and that translates to [success on] the field.”
This camaraderie is no accident. In fact, while they’re pushing their players to their highest levels, head coach Alex Tancrell-Fontaine and assistant coach Sarah Saywer are behind every move, consistently fostering team unity and joy while sharpening skills. It’s the undercurrent to the team’s ferocity, and shows up in myriad ways, from impromptu dance competitions like today to team walks before brunch, apple picking, a team hike up Mt. Tom, and something called “What’s good Tuesdays,” during which each player, as the team stretches together, shouts out something positive that happened that day.
It’s here that I learn that Piekarski enjoyed her first woodworking class; and that Ella Skeiber ’28, a sophomore from Pembroke, Mass., was proud of her performance in an AP discussion.
This weekly tradition joins other wacky practice routines like drills with pool noodles, team runs in which players must bring back an “interesting object,” and a game in which partners are blindfolded, and the others direct them toward the goal. They foster a team in which players, according to Sawyer, “learn how to compete joyfully.”
In just a week, Tancrell-Fontaine and Sawyer’s practice plans have worked, according to Caroline Doherty ’26, who stressed how inclusive the team has already been to her as a postgraduate.
“We’re obviously very serious when we have to be,” said Caroline, who will play ice hockey at Holy Cross next year.
Caroline, from Hingham, Mass., will hit the ice next year alongside one of last year’s Field Hockey captains, Violet Carroll ’25. Though she isn’t able to play competitively anymore, Carroll, who had never played Field Hockey before Williston, misses the team spirit and joy.
“T-F [players’ name for Tancrell-Fontaine] makes practice so much fun,” Carroll said, adding that the sport, in a way, allowed her to relax a bit; because it wasn’t her primary sport and she wasn’t worried about getting recruited, she said there was less pressure. That ease found its way to the field.
“When you play with joy, you play so much better,” Carroll said.
Recalling last year’s NEPSAC victory, which of course the team hopes to defend, Carroll said, “It was actually one of the greatest days of my life.”
Again, the scoreboard and trophy seem to come second to the spirit.
Playing hard and “playing with our hearts,” as Carroll put it, has had a lasting impact. “It made me a better athlete, a better teammate, a better person.”
Playing with joy. Sweating the small stuff but not letting it consume you. If these feel imbued into the team’s DNA, it’s, again, all by design.
“It’s about not being scared,” said Tancrell-Fontaine, who, along with coach Sawyer and the entire team, wears two friendship bracelets, one that reads “Joy Not Fear,” and another that reads “Next Play.”
That one, she explains, “is not worrying about if you made a mistake, it’s how to get ready.” It’s a life value, she adds. “Don’t get caught up, you’ve got to be ready for the next play.”
Already it’s paying dividends for Carroll. “I use ‘Next Play’ in hockey. Even now, with my team, I think about it and it helps me get in the right mindset.”
Just watching her interact with her squad, it’s clear Tancrell-Fontaine, in her fourth year as head coach and 11th in the program, has high expectations. Balancing those demands with overwhelming positivity and encouragement, she has concocted a formula that’s working, one that’s a model for helping athletes play for more than just a winning record.
“They want to be successful for one another,” Tancrell-Fontaine said. “They’re working hard, getting better, having fun—if all that happens, we’ll be successful.”
