Field Hockey
Favorite athlete: Danny Briere
Favorite team: Philadelphia Flyers
Favorite memory competing in sports: Scoring the game-winning goal against PW at home my junior year
Most embarrassing moment competing in sports: Tripping over my own two feet and tearing my ACL on the last day of preseason this year
Music on iPod: A little bit of everything. Taylor Swift, Lady Antebellum, Maroon 5, Lifehouse, and Childish Gambino
Future plans: Attend college and study to become a Physician’s Assistant, travel around the world, start a family and become a hockey mom
Words to live by: ‘It’s not whether you get knocked down; it’s whether you get up.’ Vince Lombardi
One goal before turning 30: Travel to Australia
One thing people don’t know about me: I make a mean Chocolate Chip Oreo Cupcake
Sarah Carroll, according to her field hockey coach, has a heart of gold.
“If I could clone her and make 25 more of (her) for my team, I would in a heartbeat,” coach Heather Boyer said of the Upper Dublin senior. “She’s respectful, and she’s sincere.
“She really works hard in the classroom and as an athlete. She doesn’t restrict herself to a tight circle of friends. She’s friendly with everybody. She’s just a really great person.”
Carroll displayed her true character after she tore her ACL during the final week of preseason and was sidelined the entire season. Down but not out, Carroll didn’t let the injury keep her from making a positive impact. She attended as many practices as she could and was at every one of her team’s games.
“She was her teammates’ number one fan, even though she was completely devastated because she was missing her entire season,” Boyer said.
It wasn’t supposed to end like this for Carroll, who was projected to be the Flying Cardinals’ starting right defensive back.
“Coming into the season, she had really taken her game to the next level,” Boyer said. “I had graduated a right back, so I was really looking for her to take that position because she has really good knowledge of the game, and her skill level was outstanding, so I felt comfortable enough to move her from the forward line to the backfield.
“She really was understanding the position, and she was doing really well, plus she had good speed.”
Everything was going according to script. Until, that is, the start of the third week of preseason.
“It was our final two-a-day,” Carroll recalled. “We had morning practice, and we were supposed to have our first scrimmage that afternoon.
“We were playing one of the games we play during preseason called animal ball. It basically sets you up for a two-on-one situation. I was the one, and I intercepted the ball, and I took it down the shortened field. Our goalie approached me, and I went to pull around her. I pivoted wrong, and I felt a pop.”
Carroll immediately knew the injury was serious.
“I took two years of sports medicine and a year of anatomy with Miss Boyer, and I was pretty well aware of what happens when your body malfunctions,” Carroll said. “I kind of knew something was very serious. I was mainly trying to be optimistic saying, ‘I’ll be back later in the season.’”
That afternoon, Carroll went to see Dr. Moyer with Temple Sports Medicine.
“He made a hypothesis that it was my ACL and possibly my lateral meniscus,” she said. “He ordered an MRI for that Tuesday. “
Two weeks later, Moyer confirmed his initial diagnosis.
“My range of motion when I first got injured was very, very limited,” said Carroll, who is scheduled to undergo surgery on Nov. 8. “I could barely move my knee. That’s when Dr. Moyer said it would be beneficial for me to go to physical therapy in the hopes of strengthening my knee before surgery.
“With my schedule being so hectic with two or three games a week, it was very difficult for me to go to practice and try and heal myself. Miss Boyer was very adamant about me choosing myself over the team. I would attend games and go to physical therapy while the girls were practicing. It became sort of my own practice day, I guess.”
The day after Carroll’s injury the Flying Cardinals were scheduled to play a preseason game. She opted to not attend.
“I realized I wasn’t going to be able to sit and watch the girls,” she said. “It would be too difficult.
“The coaching staff was so kind to me. They told me I could do whatever I could. After that, I decided I needed the girls, and the girls needed me. I went to every single game after that. It was pretty easy to realize that just because I was hurt didn’t mean I was off the team.”
Carroll credits her teammates for carrying her through the difficult days immediately after the injury.
“My teammates are some of the most amazing girls I’ve ever met,” she said. “They would come over to my house during those first two weeks. We would watch movies, and we ate a lot of ice cream.
“So it was very easy for me to sit on the bench and cheer them on because even when I was on the field I loved to cheer them on, so it wasn’t that much different other than I wasn’t touching the ball.”
Until Upper Dublin’s Senior Night game against Upper Moreland when Carroll – with permission from her doctor - started at center forward and made the center pass to open the game and then immediately came off the field.
Prior to the game, Boyer made arrangements with Upper Moreland coach Karen Grossi that if the Golden Bears won the toss, they would choose direction so that possession would default to the Flying Cardinals.
“It was very emotional,” Carroll said. “That was something very nice (the Upper Moreland coach) did, allowing us to have the ball and do an immediate substitution. I can’t be more thankful for her. That way I could at least say I got to start and touch the ball my senior season.
“In our huddle before the game, I thanked my girls for being my number one fans and being so supportive. We were all crying, but it was all very happy.”
Although Carroll handled her injury with grace, Boyer – who was sidelined her sophomore college softball season with a broken leg – acknowledged that sitting out a season is not easy.
“You don’t want to see any kid have an experience like that where they injure themselves and are out for the season, but definitely not her,” Boyer said. “She’s genuine, she’s a very real person, and she’s very sincere.
“She’s worked really, really hard to get to where she was. She played indoor, she ran track so she would stay fit for field hockey. She just really committed herself to the sport because she loves the game.”
Carroll admits she’s had a long-standing love affair with field hockey.
“I have officially been playing for about 10 years now, but I have watched field hockey my entire life,” the Upper Dublin senior said. “I was born into a family of mainly girl cousins who played hockey before me, and I was basically born with a stick in my hand.
“Every single girl cousin, including my (older) sister played hockey.”
Carroll, who swims in the summer, even went out for track last spring to stay in shape for hockey. She earned a varsity letter, but it’s field hockey that is her passion.
“I love the whole sport and everything that comes with it,” she said. “I actually love preseason. I love helping the girls get in shape and just striving to become a better team, to become a better athlete and a better hockey player. I guess I would have to say I love just being part of a team.”
Off the hockey field, Carroll – an excellent student - is involved in SGA and French Club. Her top three college choices are Shippensburg, Bloomsburg and West Chester where she plans to study pre-medicine with the goal of one day becoming a physician’s assistant.
“Some of my friends joke that we’re the super hero family because my mom was a paramedic at one point, my dad’s a police officer, and both my dad and I are volunteer firefighters, so emergency medicine is very much in my family,” she said.
Carroll has been a junior firefighter with the Fort Washington Fire Company for a year and a half. Since she is under 18, she cannot go into a building or go onto an actual accident scene.
“I’ll do any outside work,” she said. “I’ll change air packs, I’ll roll hoses, I’ll get tools to the door for the guys. I love it.”
Carroll lives with the dream of coming back from her knee injury to play hockey at the collegiate level.
“It’s definitely still on my mind,” she said. “I’m ready to get back out there and just be healthy in general.
“I’m very optimistic about being able to run again. I love to run. This injury has definitely made me appreciate what I had much more.”
