Athlete of the year: Young a driving force for Essex
Kathleen Young doesn't just score goals, she snipes with authority. The Essex two-sport star isn't simply fast — no, she's quick enough to turn a sliver of an opening into the difference between a win and a loss.
And, in the same fashion, Young's impact isn't limited to excellence. Beyond the highlights, the championships, the accolades, she wants to grow the sport she loves so much. That's why, when Young was 15, she approached USA Field Hockey about getting equipment (and she did) to run a summer camp to teach fundamentals to girls between the ages of 7 and 10 (its third year starts July 9).
"You can play soccer when you're like 3, I see these little kids running around," Young said of her motivation for the venture. "But there's no field hockey anywhere, probably because it's hard to come by sticks and it's expensive.
"Right now we only have five girls signed up but I really need 12. I can work with 12."
With so many superlatives, a question seems fair. Is the Harvard-bound grad Superwoman?
"She is. And such a nice kid," said John Maddalena, the Essex girls hockey coach. "Sometimes you have to pinch yourself, is this real?"
Even if that outsized title doesn't suit Young, who led the Hornets to back-to-back championships in field hockey and ice hockey as a junior and senior, she now has another she can add to her impressive resume: The Burlington Free Press' girls athlete of the year.
In field hockey, the sport taking the two-time Free Press player of the year to Harvard for preseason workouts in August, Young spent the last two seasons as the deep-lying playmaker driving the Hornets to repeat crowns in Division I.
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"She doesn't play on the front line and yet makes so much stuff happen and can finish," said South Burlington coach Anjie Soucy. "I know teams tried to just man-mark her. The whole purpose is to prevent her from getting the ball. That's really the one way to slow her down."
Her skills and production tempered somewhat by defensive duties in midfield, the 5-foot-3 dynamo still managed to provide at least one or two "wow" moments each time she took the field.
"You're just like, oh, yep, there it is," Soucy said. "Not much we can do about that."
It could've been almost anything — a clever bit of stick handling and burst to weave through defenders and leave them in her wake, a rocket shot out of a penalty corner. In one highlight that made the rounds on television, it was a rising, back-handed shot — taken at nearly full speed, a goal essentially made from scratch — that lifted the Hornets to a 1-0 win over Middlebury.
"Oh, the backhand. Yeah," Young said last week. "That was a total fluke. That wasn't any skill at all. Everyone was like, 'Whoa did you mean to do that?' Nope.
"I didn't mean to lift it up that high. I was really worried they were going to call it back. I went in and grabbed the ball really fast and ran out of there. You've got to sell it a little bit."
On the ice, too, where Young copped Miss Hockey honors this winter with a 34-goal, 11-assist campaign, her influence was undeniable.
Shade her to the inside, she'd beat you wide. Overplay her to the boards and she'd deke back the other way, free to unleash her stinging wrist shot.
"You knew what she was coming down the ice to do … But even though you knew what she was going to do, she'd make it happen," said Luke Cioffi, coach of Essex's fiercest hockey rival, BFA-St. Albans. "She always seemed to get the right goal at the right time. Be in the right spot at the right time. Make the right move at the right time."
If there's a reason why, beyond her fleet feet and her handiwork, chalk it up to her insatiability.
"She's basically a sponge," Maddalena said. "She's looking for that constructive criticism. ... Kathleen, in particular of any athlete I've ever worked with, is so receptive to input from coaches and teammates. It really makes her something special."
If not for her commitment to the Futures Elite Academy, a nationwide program for 150 of the country's top youth field hockey prospects, it likely would have translated into a third sport.
The time commitment — traveling to and from Boston for training every Sunday throughout the spring — was too great to continue with lacrosse as junior and senior, despite her wishes to the contrary.
"I've always said, 'Don't specialize,'" Young said. "I don't think that's good for your body and I don't think that's good for developing as an all-around athlete. That's why I would never give up ice hockey."
For its part, Harvard hasn't ruled that out for her. After being named Miss Hockey, her future coach, Tjerk van Herwaarden, called with congratulations and an offer.
If the Vermont star wanted a tryout with the women's hockey team, he'd set it up with the coach. The gesture, unlike so many defenses, left Young staggered.
"Really? It's ice hockey we're talking about — the one where they hit people and I'm 5-foot-3," Young said. "But he was open to it. I still haven't decided what I want to do about that."
This story was originally published June 27, 2015. Contact Austin Danforth at 651-4851 or edanforth@freepressmedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/eadanforth
KATHLEEN YOUNG'S YEAR AT A GLANCE
• Field hockey: The two-time Free Press player of the year piloted the Hornets to a 15-0-1 record and repeat crown in Division I. Her seven tallies and six assists last fall left her third all-time in goals (25) and first in helpers (31) at Essex.
• Ice hockey: With 34 goals and 11 assists, Young doubled-down on player of the year honors as a senior, earning the title of the Free Press' Miss Hockey. Her hat trick and assist in Essex's 5-1 championship game victory against Middlebury made her the first player to record four points in a Division I final.
• Next year: Headed to Division I Harvard University to continue field hockey career.