School: Council Rock North
Field Hockey, Lacrosse
Favorite athlete: Ryan Lochte
Favorite team: Brooklyn Brawlers (Roller Derby)
Favorite memory competing in sports: “My freshman lacrosse season playing against North Penn. With four minutes left in the game, we were down by four goals. We ended up winning by one, and it was amazing. I’ll never forget that game.”
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that happened while competing in sports: “Last summer during a tournament, I got hit by a shot in the mouth and had two fat lips the rest of the day. After the swelling went down, I had a nice bruise for about a week.”
Music on iPod: Taylor Swift
Future plans: Still planning
Words to live by: “Never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game.”
One goal before turning 30: “Fly a plane. I think that would be awesome.”
One thing people don’t know about me: “I eat a bowl of cereal every night before bed.”
Mention the name Casey Doyle, and it’s a safe bet words like ‘positive’ and ‘upbeat’ will immediately become part of the conversation.
“She is upbeat 100 percent of the time,” field hockey coach Heather Whalin said of the Council Rock North senior. “The kid is just amazing. Even when times are tough – she’s just positive 24-7.”
“She is just so upbeat and positive,” former Council Rock North lacrosse coach Meghan Hamilton said. “I don’t think she came out one day and even appeared to have a bad day.
“If she had an off day, she still worked hard, she still cheered on her teammates.”
Throw in some serious athletic talent, and it’s easy to understand why Doyle was named captain of both her hockey and lacrosse teams.
“If you want to look up the word captain, she defines it,” Whalin said.
“She understood as a captain last year what she needed to do to be a leader and have a successful team,” Hamilton said. “She was just a joy to coach.
“She’s the kind of student-athlete that makes a coach wan to coach. You want a whole team of Casey Doyles.”
A first team all-league selection in both field hockey and lacrosse, Doyle has accepted a scholarship to play lacrosse at the University of New Hampshire.
“She just has such wonderful stick skills,” said Hamilton of her defensive third man. “Just getting the ball up to our offensive end – she just knew where to be.”
Doyle has been playing lacrosse since she was in third grade when Council Rock’s youth lacrosse program for girls was started. She signed up with her good friend and Council Rock South star Madison Hurwitz.
“Her dad, Dave Hurwitz, and my mom (Marie Doyle) coached us all through our youth lacrosse leagues,” said Doyle. “Honestly, they not only got us started but really made us love the sport.
“Like anything, it was hard to pick up, but we just had so much fun because it was with a bunch of my friends. We started together and grew up loving it together.”
In seventh grade, Doyle – who played soccer until she was in eighth grade – was introduced to field hockey.
“It began as ‘This will keep me in shape until lacrosse season,’ but as you go along, you start playing with the same people,” she said. “I think the better you get at it, the more you like it, and your team just grows so close that you can’t give it up.”
Whalin is certainly glad that Doyle stuck with hockey. A sweeper as a junior, Doyle moved to center back this fall where she led the Indians’ offense and defense.
“At first she was like, ‘I don’t know about this,’ but she was amazing,” Whalin said. “She understood where everyone needed to be for us to be successful.
“She would literally quarterback the entire game. She’s that tough kid – she would go in and say, ‘We’re not losing. Let’s get it done.’”
When it came to leadership, Doyle was a dream come true for Whalin in her first year at the helm.
“When I met her, she said, ‘I’m Doyle. What do you need?’” said the Indians’ first-year coach, who teaches at Burlington City High School. “We would e-mail and text all day about things I needed her to do. I wouldn’t second guess – it was done.
“I would walk up to the field on game day, and everything was ready to go. She had the whole team going, she had everything running.”
A college visit forced Doyle to miss Rock North’s non-league game against Oley Valley.
“It was a totally different atmosphere,” Whalin said. “It really was. We were out of sync, and we didn’t know what to do.”
Although it might sound cliché, Doyle – according to the first-year coach – really is the consummate ‘All-American kid.’
“She’s smiling all the time, gets the good grades, is a popular kid at school and comes from a great family that’s very supportive,” Whalin said. “She’s the whole package. “
“She was truly everybody’s friend on the team,” Hamilton said. “She cheered everyone on.
“Having a player who has that attitude and the skill level she has – she was just a phenomenal leader all the time.”
Doyle joined the Phantastix club lacrosse team the summer after eighth grade. The groundwork was being laid for a collegiate career.
“Being part of a club team really helped with my college selection,” she said. “My coaches were awesome and made phone calls and helped us get in touch with coaches. My whole team was going through the same exact thing.
“In my sophomore year, we all had to make an athletic resume and started e-mailing a bunch of colleges. I always kept my options open.”
It was a visit to New Hampshire on Junior Day last January that all but sealed the deal for Doyle.
“I just fell in love with it,” she said. “I knew from then on that was it. After that, I pretty much had my heart set on New Hampshire.”
With one visit to the New England campus, Doyle’s college list went from six to one.
“They always say you know – it was the weirdest feeling,” she said. “As soon as I got there, I knew that’s where I wanted to be.
“The team is awesome. I’m absolutely in love with the coaches there.”
Doyle pays head coach Sandy Bridgeman the ultimate compliment by comparing the Wildcats’ coach to her first lacrosse coach under whose tutelage she developed her passion for the sport.
“She’s just awesome,” Doyle said. “She reminds me a lot of Dave Hurwitz. She’s serious, but it’s always about having fun and making sure you love the sport before anything else.
“There wasn’t any time throughout my entire youth career when we didn’t have fun.”
Doyle is uncertain of her major, but she has plenty of time to decide.
For now, she still has her final high school lacrosse season on the horizon, and if the past is any indication, she’ll be playing as if she still has a point to prove.
“She’s an amazing lacrosse player,” Whalin said. “She’s the type of person if she’s going to do something and put her name on it, she does it 100 percent all the time.”
