Ice Hockey, Lacrosse
Favorite athlete: Jason Kelce. He’s not just a great athlete but a great girl dad, and he has an awesome sense of humor.
Favorite team: The Philadelphia Flyers
Favorite memory competing in sports: It is hard to put in words, how much I love competing. I love the good, the bad and the ugly moments. I obviously love winning, but what I really love is when I finish a game and know I played my best; and my teammates -- whichever team I’m playing on -- just seem to click on the ice and we know we did our best as a team.
Most embarrassing/ funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: When a kid wanted to fight me and I used “big” words. The look on his face was priceless. Or the time I stood up to a bigger player on the blue line. I flew from the blue line to the red line. I was fine but when I got up the kid was like, “I didn’t realize you were a girl! I’m so sorry.” I honestly think he was more hurt than I was. I also don’t want people to be easier on me because I’m not a boy, I play hard because I’m girl.
Music on playlist: Classical, Rock, Country, 80s music (whatever has a good beat)
Future plans: To become a veterinarian and help both people and animals.
Words to live by: "There's sharks and minnows in this world. If you don't know which you are, you ain't a shark." Rip says it in Yellowstone.
One goal before turning 30: To go abroad and experience different cultures … especially their food.
One thing people don’t know about me: I love the beach. I love going surfing, fishing, jet skiing, and swimming.
By GORDON GLANTZ
On her family’s 7 1/2 -acre farm in Plumstead Township in Bucks County, Isabella Carter’s family is home to multiple animals – from dogs to donkeys to chickens to goats to sheep to alpacas and fish.
There is even a mule.
Add a self-described shark, at least figuratively.
“Yes,” she confirmed. “(A shark is) someone who is hungry in the sense that they know what they want and will go after it. In life, things aren’t going to be handed to you on a silver platter.”
This predator mentality made Carter the perfect trailblazer as the first girl to lace up skates and play ice hockey for Central Bucks West, and she is now counting on being a
role model for others, but cautions that perseverance is needed.
“I’m hopeful that other girls will follow and feel comfortable following whatever sport they want,” said the senior defender. “I also know that it’s not easy. I am always the first on the ice at every practice. I have to be. I know I need to work harder than the boys and that you can’t take anything for granted.
“What they don’t see is the hours and hours I spend each week in our barn shooting pucks, practicing; but I love this game and I expect to be playing for a long time just like my dad.”
Carter watched her dad, Joe, play hockey in their native New Jersey and was immediately in love with the game.
Playing at the highest possible level, which meant against boys, was the immediate goal.
“I’ve always wanted to do it,” she said. “Ever since I was little, I watched my dad play hockey with my aunt and stuff. It was never a question of if I wanted to do it. It was always just a matter of when.”
Working on a Dream
Carter’s first experience playing against boys was on a house team at Winding River Rink in Toms River, located in her native Ocean County, N.J.
She also captained a 14U girls’ team – the Tiger Lilies – in Princeton, N.J.
“We drove 1.5 hours several times a week because there weren’t any local girls’ teams,” she said. “This was up until 8th grade.”
The Carters then moved to Bucks County, setting up shop at Stone Cellar Farm in April of 2020 (in the midst of COVID).
She started playing with the Lady Patriots as a freshman in high school, not even aware that her new school, CB West, had what is ostensibly a boys’ team.
Once she knew about it, well, there was no keeping the farm girl down on the farm.
She came out for the team determined to make it work.
While the West coaching staff now can’t imagine life without Carter, there was definitely a feeling-out process.
“They didn’t really know what to do with me,” said Carter. “I asked a lot of questions. I like to know how things work, and I don’t think they were expecting me to learn as much as I learned.
“I would be on the ice 30 minutes beforehand, working on all the stuff we did in practice the week before. I just wanted to make sure that I had it down.”
If first impressions mean anything, longtime CB West coach Dave Baun immediately put aside any apprehension of having a girl on the team.
Even if his team cut players, she would have made the team.
“It’s true,” said Baun. “It wasn’t a case where we took her because we needed someone. We took her because she could play.”
As such, she was no longer Isabella. She was “Carter” to the coaches, as they like to call all the players by their surnames.
Said Baun: “She’s one of the team members. We never treated her any different, one way or the other.
“She is a really good learner. She has a great attitude. She’s a smart player. Playing defense requires a smart player. It’s different from playing forward. There is a lot of technique. There is a lot of learning. Even at the pro level, defensemen take longer to develop.
“We always admired her coachability. In terms of learning how to play, she has learned how to play. She is a very competent player. She’s a good player.”
One of the Guys
With most players outweighing her by a lot, the physical part of the game led to some lessons through hard knocks.
“I had to learn how to check, that’s for sure,” said Carter, who captains the Lady Patriots 19U Club team. “I just like to stay low and make sure the puck doesn’t go towards the net.”
Initially, like the coaches, Carter’s male teammates saw her as an oddity.
“I didn’t want to be treated any differently,” said Carter, who has since encouraged fellow senior Abigail Rogers to play this year, primarily as a practice player. “It’s gotten
better. Some of them didn’t know how to talk to a girl at first, honestly, but I have showed them how to talk to a girl. It worked out. I’m just like them. I’m one of the guys.”
While it took some adjusting by her teammates, Carter had some adjusting to do as well.
“It was a little rocky at first,” said Carter, who has an assist and 10 penalty minutes for West this season. “I had to figure out the speed of the game, but I feel like I definitely picked it up, the more and more that I played.”
And then there is the issue of opposing players and the potential for trash talk and cheap shots.
“Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t,” she said. “Sometimes they like me. Sometimes they don’t know what to do with me. They don’t know whether they should hit me or not. They don’t know whether they should take the puck or not. It’s a mix of whatever it is they want to do. They don’t know if they are allowed to hit me sometimes. Other times, I think they do it because they don’t like that I’m a girl, which is totally fine.”
The big moment for her often comes after games.
“They are surprised when I take off my helmet and I have all my luscious locks underneath,” she said with a laugh.
Clearing Hurdles
What has impressed Baun the most is Carter’s steady improvement.
“She has earned her time,” he said. “She didn’t play much when she was a sophomore, but the difference in the quality of her game, between junior year and senior year, has been pretty remarkable.
“She learned defensive technique. She plays angles well. She gaps up well. She learns the sequence of puck retrievals. These are the things that not everyone in the league does, but she does those things well. She can compensate for the fact that she is a little lighter than some of the other kids.
“She compensates for it because she’s smart. She plays smart.”
Carter goes about 5-6 and weighs around 130 pounds, so she is definitely on the short end of a lot of contact in the SHSHL.
“It’s not easy playing a physical sport like ice hockey and giving up I don’t know how many pounds, sometimes 80 pounds, to your competition,” said Baun. “But, yet, she can compete because she is a smart player and does all the things you need to be a good defender well.”
And when Carter can’t get out of the way, she just takes a licking and keeps on ticking.
“I just got run over the other day,” she said, rather enthusiastically. “It was so much fun.”
There was a particular instance last year when Carter was drilled behind her own net, and several of her teammates came to her defense.
“Oh yeah,” she said. “I remember that. Our goalie, Liam Rogers, went after the kid. I looked back and everyone came together.”
This season, Carter returned the favor, defending Rogers.
“We recently had a Pennsbury game,” said Carter. “Some kid hit our goalie, and I punched him back, and I got a roughing penalty.”
Added Baun, with a chuckle: “She picked up two penalty minutes last game. She’s feisty. There have been a few games where she has given a few kids the business. She is not afraid to talk back to them. Let’s put it that way.”
While she suits up in her own locker room, everything else is the same.
“Right before the game, when the coaches come in and talk, she comes into the locker room,” said Baun. “After the game, she comes into the locker room right after and then she leaves. That’s about the main difference.
“In terms of adapting to her, she rolls with just everybody else. I have never seen anybody treat her any differently.”
Priorities
It goes without saying that playing with and against boys has made Carter a dominant force on her girls’ club team (and she is proudly second in that league in penalty minutes).
“Absolutely,” she confirmed. “No matter what the speed is, I’m processing a lot faster since when I started playing against boys. Just messing around with the boys before practice starts, warming up with them, really helped improve my playing style.”
While there have been other options, Carter plans to attend Penn State’s main campus and play club hockey.
It’s a matter of keeping her priorities in order.
“I went to Penn State for a visit, and I really enjoyed it,” she said. “I am going for animal science to later become a veterinarian. I had a lot of offers from D2 and D3 schools. I care about my education though, so I’m going to pursue that.”
Carter takes an AP-heavy curriculum and maintains a 3.7 GPA and is in the National Honor Society, where her volunteer hours are spent coaching for the Lady Patriots and for the middle school team.
“I have no free time, but that’s OK,” said Carter, who is a versatile player on the CB West lacrosse team. “I don’t really need it.
“I don’t like to sit around and be a bum on the couch. I like to be moving around.”
With her family’s farm, there is plenty of work to be done and not much idle time.
“I love doing it,” she said. “We help out all the other farmers and help plow their fields and do hay and work the process of that, which is pretty cool.
“It’s kind of like a homestead. My mom (Linda Carter) is the head of a company called PTC. She is the head of the IT Department, and they do great work here as well. That’s why I wanted to go into medicine.”
Carter likes to joke that her younger siblings are like farm animals. The reality is that her brother, Joseph, is likely West’s goalie of the future and her sister, Sophia, plans to skate in her footsteps and play on the boys’ team.
“She’s in seventh grade and she says she wants to play,” said Carter. “She said she’s my legacy. Every time she says that, it makes me want to smile.”
Gaining Motivation
Carter thanked family friend, Mike Natoli, for teaching her how to build a 502 Big Block motor that is for a 1967 Corvette.
Carter carries that approach over to the ice.
“I like to be very mechanical when I play,” she said. “I just like the mechanics of certain things, and I know where I’m supposed to be at certain times. I like to know how things work in whatever I do.”
Baun recently checked on Carter while she played a club game and was heartened to see her stick to the same fundamentals.
“I try to watch all of my players in their club games, if they are playing close by,” Baun said. “I’ll sneak out and go in the stands and watch them play a little bit.
“I watched her play a girls’ game, maybe 2-3 weeks ago. She didn’t even know I was there. I watched her doing the same things on that team that she does on our team. To me, that’s a big step.”
For her part, Carter extended deep gratitude to Baun for giving her a chance to be a groundbreaker, assistant coach Frank Mancini for his constructive criticism and AP History teacher Brian Weaver, also the baseball coach, for his guidance on the challenges of being a successful student-athlete.
“I would also like to thank my parents for everything that they have done and showing me the importance of hard work,” said Carter.
But her biggest thank you, is saved for a certain subset of people.
The naysayers.
She said: “And, finally, thank you to all the people who told me I couldn’t do it. Because, guess what, I did it.”
