Field Hockey, Basketball, Softball
Favorite athlete: Caitlin Clark
Favorite team: Yankees
Favorite memory competing in sports: Winning districts sophomore and junior year in basketball
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: In softball, my teammate and I collided while going for a pop fly and we both fell down. Somehow one of us still caught the ball and got the out. (This happened twice)
Music on playlist: Early 2000s throwbacks
Future plans: Attend Lancaster Bible College and play basketball and major in Early Childhood Education
Words to live by: “Whatever you do work at with all your heart for the Lord”
One goal before turning 30: Hike the Grand Canyon
One thing people don’t know about me: I embroider and crochet
`By Mary Jane Souder
Coaches routinely talk about those players who will do ‘whatever the team needs.’ To the point where it has become all but cliché.
Then along comes New Hope-Solebury senior Emily Wilson, who gives new meaning to the phrase.
Roll back the calendar to last fall.
The field hockey season had just gotten underway when coach Gwen Smith lost her starting goalie.
“We had only one goalie, and she was injured – the next day she came to practice in a boot and said, ‘I’m out,’” Smith said.
Senior Emily Wilson – a standout basketball player - immediately came to Smith’s mind as a replacement. No, Wilson wasn’t a member of the hockey team. As a matter of fact, she had never even played field hockey. The extent of her hockey experience consisted of attending some of Smith’s camps when she was considerably younger, and she had played goalie at one of the camps.
“I literally went to her and said, ‘We need a goalie – can you come in?’” Smith recalled. “I was like – ‘all the footwork is the same as basketball.,’ which is how I tried to sell it to her a long time ago.”
The sales pitch that didn’t work at her camp all those years ago this time did. Not because Wilson – whose younger sister Danielle was a freshman on the team - suddenly wanted to play field hockey but rather because she was sympathetic of Smith’s plight.
“Our numbers for basketball were really struggling,” Wilson said. “It was an awkward time, and I was heavily trying to get more girls to join basketball.
“We’re a small school, and it’s kind of hard to get a bunch of girls to play one sport, so when they needed someone for field hockey, I knew exactly how they felt, and I was like – why not? I know what it feels like to really need people, and I know what it takes for a team. Why not just try it, so I joined. I thought it would be fun too.”
Fun is not a word most would use to describe arguably the most challenging position on the hockey field. Players are not lining up to play goalie, but Wilson was willing to give it a go.
“It was crazy,” Smith said. “The hard part is when I asked her, I said ‘We need you now – we actually needed you yesterday. We’re in the middle of the season.’
“That first week me and my other coach had to practice her at different times because she had commitments, but she was all in and she was there all the time. She did fantastic, she absolutely did. She was fearless. She had the mentality – ‘I’m going to do whatever it takes to keep the ball out.’
“It may not be the prettiest, but she is going to do whatever she can to keep it out. We were getting to the really hard part of our crossover games against all the number one teams in our league. That’s when she walked in, and she legit had no fear – ‘all right, let’s go.’ I said to her ‘Can you imagine if you’d played four years?’”
Ask Wilson her worst moment as a novice goalie, and she has none.
“I think the hardest thing for me was – all the sports I’ve played throughout my life, I’ve played consistently, and I always knew what I was doing,” she said. “But when I joined field hockey, field hockey goalie especially, there were so many new concepts I didn’t know, and I was learning it really fast, so it was definitely a challenge. I was so thankful for the coaches because they taught me a lot. That was the most challenging aspect.
“The most fun was seeing how all sports kind of come together and really help. Each sport’s athleticism goes off each other sport. Same thing as basketball on defense – everything worked together, which was really cool to see, and all the girls were so nice.”
All in the family
Wilson’s willingness to do ‘whatever the team needs’ didn’t begin and end with field hockey (more on that later). It apparently runs in the family. NH-S basketball coach Andy Krasna explains.
“Emily went to hockey practices and then basketball workouts at nights,” he said. “It just shows you – they needed her, and she stepped in.
“Her sister Danielle is a very good field hockey player. We only had five varsity players in basketball. Now we have six. Danielle’s playing with us.”
“Danielle wasn’t going to play basketball,” Smith said. “The crazy thing is now basketball needed her to play, and she played.”
Emily - the 11th of 14 children of Chuck and Kim Wilson - grew up in a family that loved sports – all sports.
“I don’t remember a time when there weren’t sports involved, especially because there’s so many of us,” she said. “My dad was very involved with us.
“We have a basement we always play sports in, every sport. We have a basketball hoop in the driveway. We just have everything. We play volleyball and soccer. Since there’s so many of us, it’s so easy to play.
“I was home schooled until eighth grade. When you’re home all day, you find things to do, and we played sports a lot in our free time.”
Ask Wilson what it’s like to be one of 14, and she points out that she doesn’t know any different.
“It’s always busy, there’s always something happening, which is fun,” she said. “It’s good. I don’t really know – I’m so used to it.
“It’s really fun having new babies come into the family and also weddings. It’s always so much fun, but it’s definitely weird being one of the youngest and seeing people leave and go to college or get married, so that is one of the sadder parts of it, but it is still a lot of fun.”
Family is a priority for Wilson as is her church family. Her father, Chuck, is the longtime pastor of New Hope Community Church.
“Our church community is so good, and we’re really close with everyone which is really a cool blessing,” Wilson said. “My dad was the pastor ever since I was born, so I know everybody really well.
“We’re a rather small congregation. It’s a really neat family unit, and it’s been really nice to grow up with. Everybody is just very kind, supportive and loving, which is so cool. Everyone really cares about you and is involved. Personally, I don’t know any different, but I really like it.”
Basketball wins out
At a young age, Wilson became involved in community sports – basketball, soccer, softball.
“It’s really whatever sport you liked best, and I always liked basketball the most,” she said. “I don’t really know why. I just always thought it was the most fun.”
She began her basketball career with Solebury travel and joined the Rebels on the AAU circuit. She remained with the Rebels until her final AAU season last year.
A four-year starter on the varsity basketball team, the senior captain this season surpassed the 1,000-point milestone.
“She’s our point guard, but she’s really a combo guard,” Krasna said. “She leads us in scoring, she leads us in assists by far with very few turnovers compared to anyone else – she has 101 assists in 22 games, and the
next highest player has 69.
“She’s very unselfish. She could score a lot more if she was a selfish player, but she makes the right play. Emily loves to compete and brings out the best in her teammates. She takes advantage of every opportunity to get better.”
Wilson is also counted on for her leadership.
“She’s vocal but in such a positive way,” Krasna said. “She’ll be vocal coming off the floor and talking to her teammates. She also challenges the coaches in such a nice way.
“She watches a lot of game film, and then she’ll come to us and talk to us about it, but in a way that’s non-threatening. We go to her asking for her advice because she really has a good feel for the game.”
Then there are also the intangibles.
“The words to best describe Emily are empathetic and compassionate, which is just a reflection of her family,” Krasna ssaid. “She’s just very unusual.
“For instance, my mom was in the hospital, and she came over to me first thing the other day and said, ‘Hey coach Krasna – how’s you mom feeling? Everything going okay?’ She’s that way with her teammates. She has a sense of maturity that’s very, very unique.”
Her mother – despite a busy home life - also finds a way to help out with the basketball program.
“I keep telling her no, no,” Krasna said. “If you asked me what was the best thing ever coaching New Hope or what are some of the best memories – it’s with them and their support.”
It was those connections that prompted Krasna to return to the sidelines this winter after stepping down three years ago.
“When I was coaching the varsity team at New Hope, I was also coaching one of the Solebury travel teams,” Krasna said. “Three of the seniors (Wilson, Izzy Elizondo and Ella Dudick) and one of the juniors (Kayla Fennell) were on the team, and I followed them just about every game through their three years with coach Polinsky.
“One of the things that upset me was that I wouldn’t be able to coach those four girls when they got to high school. We go back to the sixth grade travel team and had a lot of fun. It was one of the reasons I did come back. I figured it was a good opportunity for me as well.”
And what could have been a difficult transition to a new coach as a senior instead was seamless.
“It was something I never would have imagined a year ago today,” Wilson said. “But it was a fun change.
“Senior year I wasn’t really thinking about coaching. I was just thinking about making sure we would have enough girls for a team. It happened – I was so grateful we were able to get a team together and a coaching staff together. It just all fell into place really well. I was really thankful for knowing him – that really helped a lot.”
Then there’s softball
If more proof was needed to confirm Wilson’s a player who does whatever is best for the team, look no further than the softball team.
As a freshman and sophomore, she was pressed into emergency duty as pitcher for a Lions’ squad that took some serious thrashings in the highly competitive Suburban One League.
“She’ll be the first to tell you she would much rather be out in the field,” NH-S coach Chris Marchok said. “There’s no question that Emily is a kid that says – what does the team need? and literally doesn’t question it after that. ‘What do you need? Okay, I’ll got do it.’ That’s who she is.
“Recently, I had a meeting with kids interested in trying out for softball. I put together a slide show, I talked about core values, and one of our core values is servant leadership. I said, ‘To make it simple for you guys, it’s just saying – how can I help everybody else before me?’ That’s Em. How can I serve? Sports are a lovely part of it, but it’s truly how she lives her life. She’s authentic through and through, a wonderful human being.”
Speaking volumes was Wilson’s response when she was in the circle and things were falling part for the Lions.
“She never flinched,” Marchok said. “She looked the same on the mound when she struck a person out and when she lost a game 10-0. As a competitor, she’s unflinching in the face of any challenge or setback.
“When she took her lumps – I don’t want to stay she did it happily because she’s a competitor, but she did it without complaining, she did it without pouting. She just did it while looking to pick people up honestly.
“She would be on the mound in the middle of those horrible innings when the kids couldn’t field a ball or whatever and never did you see anything other than her being like – ‘All right, you got the next one, here we go.’ It is truly authentic with her.
“Did she want to pitch? No. She had been taught to pitch early on (when she was a lot younger), but softball pitchers – they’re going to pitching coaches twice a week. That is not Emily. Part of it is because in the offseason – her real sport, the love of her life is basketball. She was always, always, always basketball. She had long ago given up the idea of doing the pitching training because she loved being in the field. She simply did the stuff on the mound to help us out.”
Last year, everything changed for the New Hope-Solebury softball team with the arrival of a pair of travel softball pitchers. The Lions went from a four-win season to earning a share of the SOL Freedom Division title.
“It was so exciting,” said Wilson, who happily moved to first base. “It was really cool to witness everyone’s improvement but also all the freshmen coming in and helping. It was just a really cool, fun experience.
“If I’m being completely honest, I would never have pictured our team advancing so much, so when it did happen, it was really exciting, and everyone was getting so into it. We were competing, which is so fun. That’s why we play sports – to compete.”
A bright future
This fall, Wilson will enroll in Lancaster Bible College where she will major in early childhood education and continue her basketball career.
“I knew I wanted a Christian school, and then I was like – I’ll play basketball there too,” she said. “I always knew I wanted to play basketball in college. I feel like I always knew where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do, and it just all fell into place.”
An excellent student, Wilson is a member of the National Honor Society, she is part of her school’s peer leadership, and she is active in her church youth group.
Listening to her coaches tell it, Lancaster Bible College is inheriting a student-athlete that checks all the boxes.
“She’s a fantastic athlete, and she works amazingly hard,” said Smith, who is also Emily’s aunt. “She’s a great teammate. She is encouraging, and she’s a fantastic leader.
“She has a very innate leadership style and quality. She leads by example, she encourages, she pushes. Any team would want her on their team just as a leader. Leadership is really hard to find, and she is one of those really good leaders.”
“She is incredibly strong in her faith,” Marchok said. “I know her parents – that’s the thing they’re most proud of about her is who she is. This kid is 100 percent true – authentic in her faith, authentic being a servant leader, authentic in being a kid that’s just a competitor. It’s who she is.
“She is incredibly empathetic. We personally had some things going on the last couple of years, and every so often she comes in to check in on me – the sort of thing you’re supposed to do as a coach, and she does the little drive-by check in.
“As her softball coach, I’ve had three years of an unbelievable respect for who she is as a person and a leader. She’s just a joy to be around. You can’t say enough good things about her, you just can’t.”
