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10/12/2018 12:00 AMCarly Shea has been an integral member of the Branford field hockey team since her freshman season, but she’s taking on an even bigger role as a senior captain this year. With fellow captain Jess Amarante sidelined for the season with an injury, Carly is the lone senior captain who’s patrolling the field for the Hornets this fall. Carly says that she enjoys leading her teammates in that capacity.
“It’s a lot of work, but I love it, because I feel like they look up to me,” says Carly. “It’s really interesting, because my co-captain tore her meniscus, so she’s unable to play. It’s unfortunate, but...my teammates have a captain on the field and a captain on the bench. It puts us in different roles for the team.”
Carly, who also plays lacrosse for Branford, has held a variety of roles with the field hockey squad. Now a senior, she’s settled in quite nicely to the midfielder’s position.
“The past two years, I played defense and, freshman year, I played forward. I feel like forward is where you can make your mistakes, so you put a lot of freshmen there, because they’re learning the new experience of playing on a high-school team,” Carly says. “From there, I kind of just evolved into a mid, because I can control the whole team as the voice on the field.”
Branford’s first-year Head Coach Pete Frye has been impressed with Carly’s work ethic and leadership during the first month of the season. Frye also credits Carly for how much she’s improved at her aerials, which is when a player lifts the ball with the stick.
“It takes about a year and a half to get good at it, but over the summer, she went to the field by herself and threw 100 balls per day. She made me re-do my timeline on that, because she’s become proficient at it in about six months,” says Frye. “It’s pretty rare for a kid to go to the field every day in the summer and work on their game. That leadership by example is what we want everyone to see. You win championships by the work you do in the offseason, and you pick up the trophy at the end of the season. Seeing kids willing to put in the extra work to make themselves better sets a good example for our whole team.”
In order to learn that technique, Carly enlisted the help of her sister Megan Shea, a Branford field hockey alum who is currently a senior playing at Amherst College in Massachusetts.
“She actually couldn’t do it, but she just knew the technique from her coach, and I just picked it up pretty quickly,” says Carly. “[Hornets’ assistant coach Kristyna Templeton] told me she wanted me to do 100 aerials a day, and I really tried to keep with that rule to improve it.”
Carly has reaped some rewards for her hard work through the years. As a freshman, she was named the Rookie of the Year for the Branford field hockey squad. She earned the Lauren E. Hayes Most Improved Player Award for her sophomore and junior seasons, along with winning the Desire and Dedication Award as a junior. Carly also helped the Hornets win the SCC Tournament in her sophomore year. In addition to competing for Branford, Carly sharpens her skills by playing for her club team, Hear The Cheers! Field Hockey.
“I do a lot with them. The coaches and owners of the club, Darren Smallhorn and Debra Brickey, have both taught me a lot,” says Carly, who’s also won state titles in lacrosse the past two seasons. “That’s kind of where I think I’ve seen my most improvement. In the past two offseasons with them, I really improved my game sense and skills.”
For her Senior Capstone Project at the high school, Carly organized a 7-on-7 preseason field hockey tournament that featured Branford, North Branford, Guilford, and Hand. Carly organized the tournament in conjunction with the Ethan Miller Song Foundation, which was created in memory of Guilford’s Ethan Song, who passed away from a gunshot wound at age 15 in January.
“I knew I wanted to do something with field hockey, and then I heard about the Ethan Miller Song Foundation and how it keeps kids safe. It’s about gun safety and I really liked that, so I put those two together,” Carly says. “I had four towns there, and we raised about $1,300. They want me to do it annually now, so we’ll see.”
Carly wants to play field hockey after high school and has narrowed down her choice between Connecticut College in New London and Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York. While she’s eager to compete at the next level, Carly knows that there is still a lot to accomplish with the Hornets.
“I really hope to teach the younger kids things like leadership, so they can carry it on to next year,” Carly says. “I’d also like to make it farther in states this year, because we’ve made it to the semis all the years I’ve been here. I would like to make it to the final, especially with the group of girls that we have.”