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12/19/2017 11:00 PMThere comes a time in life when people make decisions that have major ramifications, and Glenna-Kate Gies made one of those decisions when she joined the Hand field hockey squad as a junior last fall. Now a senior, Glenna-Kate leaves the Tigers having helped the team add to its stockpile of titles during the recent fall season.
Glenna-Kate played soccer at Hand through her sophomore year, but made the move to field hockey the following season. After promptly earning a starting spot at center forward in her junior campaign, Glenna-Kate was determined to go out on top this fall and wound up recording six goals with seven assists for the Tigers, who took home both the SCC and Class M State tournament championships. At the end of the season, Glenna-Kate was presented with the team’s Coaches’ Award.
“It was a lot of hard work, and I felt I was playing catchup with the other girls at first, because they started field hockey earlier,” says Glenna-Kate. “This team for field hockey was so special this year, and we knew that from the beginning. We had the components there; we just had to translate it into our play. It was a mental game for us. In the Guilford game, which was our only loss of the year, we had the work ethic to win there. We just had to be all in this year, and working hard carried us through.”
Glenna-Kate feels she made the right call when she switched to field hockey for the fall sports season. As one who also plays lacrosse for Hand in the spring, Glenna-Kate says there are a lot of similarities between her two sports, and she believes she’s become a more prolific player for both of her clubs as a result.
“I chose attacker for lacrosse, because I like scoring goals, so I tried forward [in field hockey] and took well to the position. There’s a lot more cutting than I thought in field hockey, plus the motor skills from handling a stick in lacrosse helped in field hockey,” Glenna-Kate says. “I can’t express how happy I was with the decision I made to play field hockey. The team has been so good to me, and the coaches put an emphasis on always competing and giving it your all. I keep those things in mind with lacrosse, too.”
Glenna-Kate prides herself of being a selfless teammate who doesn’t need to light up the stat sheet every game. She enjoys playing a role in any Tigers’ goal no matter who winds up putting the ball in the net.
“The team dynamic means a lot to me and, with our team, it wasn’t just one person that stood out,” says Glenna-Kate. “My role this year was being a behind-the-scenes player, which are those who don’t always get the glory of scoring, but set up the plays.”
Hand Head Coach Sue Leckey says that Glenna-Kate has a knack for mastering any task and adds that she was able to make things happen on the field in a variety of ways.
“[Glenna-Kate] is a very genuine student-athlete who displays desire to understand and master the game of field hockey and really all of her endeavors. She shows up to give her best and to train herself to be able to understand the flow of the game and the role she will play in the team dynamic,” says Leckey. “While she expects the most of herself, she also empowers her teammates through communicating where she is going, where she is passing, and where she hopes they will be to move the ball toward the goal. She is the ultimate problem solver on the field, and she made things happen for us in the high forward position, especially when we competed against our toughest opponents. Although [she] didn’t get a lot of headlines this season, many of the games would not have had headlines if she didn’t do the work she did on the field.”
Glenna-Kate now prepares herself for one final foray on the Tigers’ turf with the lacrosse team in the spring. Glenna-Kate says she’s ready to apply everything she learned from the field hockey team’s championship season in an effort to help Hand girls’ lacrosse continue its dominance of the Southern Connecticut Conference.
“For field hockey, I couldn’t have asked for a better team. I wish I started playing sooner, and I was proud to be part of an amazing experience,” says Glenna-Kate, who thanks Coach Leckey, Hand field hockey assistant coach Mike Niekrash, and all of her teammates. “For lacrosse, we are excited for what’s to come and hope we can execute to earn success.”