Soccer, Basketball, Lacrosse
Favorite athlete: Alex Morgan and Nathan Scott
Favorite team: USWNT
Favorite memory competing in sports: Beating PW in soccer, and making playoffs for soccer, basketball, and hopefully lacrosse my senior year.
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: Any time Molly Dugan, Emily Giampietro and I are together something funny always happens. From pulling pranks on the coaches to the time we decided to dye my hair 30 minutes before a practice and it turned out orange and multi-colored.
Music on iPod: All kinds
Future plans: Play lacrosse at Fairleigh Dickinson University
Words to live by: “All you can do is the best you can.”
One goal before turning 30: Get married and have a family that loves sports as much as I do.
One thing people don’t know about me: I’m very superstitious
By Mary Jane Souder
Caroline Pape is coming down the home stretch of a three-sport high school career filled with more good memories than the Springfield senior can count.
“I just love being able to go through each season playing with all my friends,” she said. “It’s different in each individual sport, but being with them and working together is what I love about sports.”
Pape admits she might have taken the whole experience for granted if she hadn’t spent her freshman year at Gwynedd Mercy Academy where she played just two sports – soccer and lacrosse. She opted to return to Springfield as a sophomore.
“It’s the best decision I could have made both academically and athletically,” Pape said. “If I hadn’t made that decision, I probably wouldn’t be playing sports in college, and I probably wouldn’t have had as good a career as I’ve had.
“Actually, the reason I decided to transfer back to Springfield was because I wasn’t even sure if sophomore year I would continue playing the other sports.
“I have no regrets. I don’t even regret going to Gwynedd my freshman year. I think that made me appreciate sports and Springfield more.”
For the past three years, Pape – who will take her lacrosse talents to Fairleigh Dickinson – has competed in soccer, basketball and lacrosse. She was welcomed back to the soccer team with open arms by coach Suzette Wolf.
“What a win for us,” the Spartans’ coach said of Pape’s return to Springfield. “Caroline started and played in every varsity game from her sophomore year on. She never came off the field and never complained about anything. Even when being pressured and marked closely by other teams, she never lost her composure.
“She is a strong and powerful athlete. She has incredible stamina and endurance. She has speed and tenacity. When she gets on the run with the ball, very few girls can stop her.”
As a senior, Pape – who was the team’s right wing midfielder - earned second team All-SOL American Conference honors.
“She was such a dominant force for us that I’m not really sure how we will ever replace some of her strengths,” Wolf said. “One of her greatest strengths for us was her consistently threatening corner kick. She placed it exactly where I needed her to place it every time, and we scored many of our goals off of it.
“Caroline is a team player. She gets along with everyone and plays her heart out for her team. I will forever be thankful that she left Gwynedd Mercy and came back to her friends at Springfield.”
Led by a strong senior core, the Spartans had one of their most successful seasons in recent years, advancing to the district tournament.
“This year actually was special because of all of the seniors – there were seven or eight of us, and we’d actually been playing club or school together since elementary school,” Pape said. “It was a great year for us.”
Although she excelled in soccer, Pape’s passion is lacrosse. The senior captain has been playing the sport since third grade when she joined the Spartan Girls Lacrosse Club.
“I don’t know – there was just something about lacrosse,” she said. “Ever since I started playing, that stuck out to me.
“I just loved the whole team aspect of the sport. I love being able to run the ball down the field and then have my team there to support me. There’s just something about it.”
According to her coach, Pape is the consummate team player.
“She’s so selfless in the way she plays,” coach Maggie Canavan said. “You can just tell without even speaking to her that she would rather see a teammate succeed and do great with her in the background, enabling a teammate to do something amazing.
“You can’t coach that. She’s a team first player, no matter what.”
It’s those traits that make Pape such a positive leader as a captain.
“As a coach, from my perspective, I just hope and pray that the way she acts and the way she leads reflects to all the younger girls,” Canavan said. “As younger athletes, I hope they’re looking up to her and saying to themselves, ‘I want to be like her when I’m a senior.’”
Pape also models a work ethic the Spartans’ coach hopes her younger players will emulate.
“I see how dedicated she is day in and day out,” Canavan said. “I have always said she is our team’s workhorse, and usually the workhorse goes unnoticed for every sport and every team.
“Whenever our team succeeds, whether scoring off transition or coming up with a defensive stop, Caroline always seems to have done the dirty work to come up with the beautiful play. You might not pick her out as our star, but she’s a workhorse, and without her, we would do nothing.
“She wears her heart on her sleeve and always gives 110 percent in both practice and games, which I think is something rare to find. She works hard and is always willing to do what others aren’t.
Pape is driven by her love of competition.
“I’m a very competitive person,” she said. “I feel like at the end of the day if our team has done its job and put a good effort in – I’m happy with the results, as long as we try our hardest.”
Pape, who says she has tried every sport, was eager to return to the basketball court after a year away from the sport her freshman year. She flourished this winter as a captain and valued reserve for the Spartans.
“Basketball is something I mainly do for fun,” she said. “I did it ever since I was little, so I couldn’t imagine not playing it.”
Springfield basketball coach Bill Krewson, a physical education teacher at Erdenheim Elementary School, has known Pape for a long time.
“I had her in gym class, and she stood out all the time, particularly with her speed – she’s a fast kid,” Krewson said. “Anything she picked up, she’s pretty natural. She’s an outstanding athlete.
“She’s a quiet kid who’s a team player and does anything you ask.”
Next year, Pape will focus her energy on just one sport, and it was her ability on the lacrosse field that caught the eye of college coaches last summer when she competed with a tournament team through STEPS Elite Lacrosse Club.
“I didn’t really know what to expect going into it because it was my first year,” Pape said. “After the first tournament, colleges started e-mailing me.
“We went to three tournaments, and Fairleigh Dickinson actually reached out to me after one of the tournaments. I went up and did the visit. I just loved the school.”
An excellent student, Pape, who is enrolled in three AP classes, is a member of the National Honor Society. As part of her service hours, she is a volunteer coach with her former lacrosse club.
Next fall, she plans to pursue a degree in education, but for now, Pape is enjoying the final chapter in her high school lacrosse career.
“Caroline is an all-around amazing athlete that truly represents our team – and school – as to what a Spartan is,” Canavan said. “She is the type of athlete every coach wants on their team.
“When she leaves, I’m probably going to cry because you can’t replace someone like that.”
