Schools

Lady Hatters Field Hockey Team Ready for Season with New Coach

Laura Swezey, who had served as assistant coach at the high school and head coach at Keith Valley Middle School, has replaced Marie Schmucker as the high's head coach.

Neither ruptured Achilles tendon nor subsequent surgery nor hobbling around on crutches could keep long-time coach Laura Swezey from the field.

Her dedication to 30 plus years of coaching - field hockey in particular – has meant that Swezey has come out to lead her teams despite her own inability to drive a vehicle, carry balls, or maneuver on two legs for a time following an injury a year and a half ago.

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 “I put ice on it and wrapped it and I coached the final game,” Swezey said of her injury, which came after her travel team, Mystx Fierce, coaxed her into playing in December 2009. “I originally said to my husband (Hatboro-Horsham High School girls lacrosse head coach Duncan Swezey) ‘why don’t you come along and carry the balls for me?’ I was on crutches and coaching my U-16 club team.”

And Mrs. Swezey, the new Lady Hatters head field hockey coach, may just have the drive to lead ’s team to a successful season, following last year’s dismal ranking of second to last.

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“I couldn’t ask for anything better,” Lady Hatters goalie Maddie Wagenfeld, a senior, said of Swezey, noting that as a freshman on the JV squad, Swezey helped build her confidence. “She just took me under her wing and coached me and taught me not to be scared.

Although new as head coach, Swezey isn’t necessarily new to Hatboro-Horsham High School – or its players. She had served as assistant field hockey coach for a half dozen years, until last season, when she resumed her previously held post as head coach at .

It’s perhaps this not-so-secret weapon, coupled with Swezey’s own ambition that is sure to take the team of fresh faces and six returning starters far. 

“What’s really neat is I’ve already coached their older sisters. I know a lot of the families too,” Swezey said. "It’s going to be a very quick, athletic, intense group, nose-to-the-grind kind of kids.”

Wagenfeld, a Lady Hatters team co-captain who has already committed to St. Joseph’s University on a field hockey scholarship, touted the girls’ “great stick skills” as a winning resource.

“We have defenders and speed and offense,” she said. “They just have the drive.”

Senior midfielder and co-captain Cortnee Daley agreed and said the will help in leading the girls to a winning season.

“Field hockey on turf is such a different game,“ Daley said, adding that many of Hatboro-Horsham’s opponents already play on artificial turf. Without turf, the team has been “at a disadvantage.”

But, win or lose, Daley said the addition of Swezey as head coach makes her field hockey life “so much easier and fun.”

“I have a great coach to talk to,” Daley said. “We’re like a family. We’re going off each other’s energy.”

For Swezey, building upon that energy, both on and off the field, is an important part of her job.

“I want them to enjoy the game and want to come back the following year. Obviously I’d like to win, but there’s more things more important, especially in high school,” Swezey said, adding that she likes to add pizza nights and fun team activities. “It’s one thing to play and be competitive, but it’s another thing to enjoy your teammates.”

And in enjoying their new head coach, suppose the girls compel Swezey, 52, onto the field to play, as she did when her Achilles tendon split? Swezey, a two-time LaSalle University Hall of Fame inductee – for field hockey and softball – said she learned a vital lesson.

“The big thing is you’ve got to warm up before you play,” she said.


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