Field-Hockey
Favorite athlete: Ali McEvoy
Favorite team: Phillies
Favorite memory competing in sports: This year we had an undefeated 18-0 regular season, which resulted in becoming SOL Continental Champions.
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: I got a bloody nose randomly in the middle of a field hockey game, and I had to play with cotton balls up my nose for the entire second half.
Music on your iPod: Alternative/Pop
Future plans: Playing field hockey and continuing my academic career at Fairfield University.
Words to live by: “When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor.” - Elon Musk
One goal before turning 30: To become a Speech Therapist.
One thing people don’t know about me: I have 13 cousins.
By Mary Jane Souder
Coaches spend a lot of time talking about the importance of intangibles, and if anyone ever had the corner of the market on the intangibles coaches covet, it might well be Central Bucks West senior Emily Halderson.
An all-league defender, Halderson boasts her share of talent and will continue her field hockey career at the Division One level. While talent can be replaced, the type of leadership the Bucks’ senior captain provided – according to coach Courtney Lepping - will be hard to duplicate.
“On a team with a bunch of stars, a bunch of really great players, she had the ability to make everyone feel more confident,” the West coach said. “So whether you were the great player that was having a bad day or the player that was filling a role and wasn’t sure if they could do it, she had the ability to make you feel like ‘I can do this.’
“She just has this confidence in her approach with you. She’s just very good at handling and talking to people in a way that encourages them and tells them – you can do this. Even when our good players weren’t having good days, she could still talk to them and bring out the best in them. That’s a skill I can’t teach.
There’s no mistaking this year’s West squad – which won the program’s first conference title in 16 years – was blessed with talent, but Halderson played a key role in pulling it all together and, more importantly, keeping it together.
“She’s someone who has learned over the time she’s been a part of field hockey and other things she’s done,” Lepping said. “She’s someone who learned over the course of time how to treat people and how to be open to them.
“It was an important part of our team this year because we have all these personalities. Emily was someone that players would say – ‘I went to Emily, I feel better, I’m good.’ It was really amazing she had that kind of ability, and I don’t know how to bottle it up. It’s such an amazing skill. She gets along with everybody. Even if they weren’t her best friend, they would come to her.”
Halderson says she learned from those who went before her and credits the senior captains when she was a freshman – Heather Zezzo and Ginny Moore – for modeling leadership qualities she would later emulate.
“When I was a freshman, me and four other girls were on jayvee, and the seniors that year were absolutely incredible,” Halderson said. “They really made us feel like we were part of the team, so I think that was my inspiration for this season – just to make sure that everybody felt like they were part of the team because it really made me feel special as a freshman, feeling like I contributed even though I didn’t play on the varsity.
“From the beginning – over the summer when we had practices before the season started, I really tried to make a point to come in contact with the freshmen even if there was a possibility of them not being on jayvee or varsity.”
Halderson’s style of leadership is understated, and she caught the eye of Lepping – then an assistant – when she was a freshman.
“I noticed her immediately out of the freshman class,” the Bucks’ coach said. “She’s a player who has really developed over the four years and has become somebody that has totally bought into the program.
“Because she’s gone through the whole process and understood the process and bought in – that makes her that genuine leader that really respects and understands what the team is all about and wants the team to succeed.
“She sees things that have gone wrong, things that have gone right, and what she was able to do this year as a captain is mold all those things she’s learned, the trials and tribulations she went through and took that into account to make this year a really special year when she had a chance to be a leader.”
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Hockey was a late arrival on the sports’ scene for Halderson, who grew up playing soccer and also tried her hand at softball. Her first experience came when she signed up to play middle school.
“It’s crazy because a lot of people start playing a lot earlier,” she said. “Most of the people who play on West started out with DAA.”
In ninth grade when it came time to choose between soccer and hockey, Halderson opted for hockey but continued playing travel soccer through her junior her. She also joined FSC on he hockey club circuit.
“From the beginning, I really enjoyed it,” she said. “I think it’s just something different, and I do enjoy the challenge of it.
“Even now, there are some rules and some skills that I still don’t know. You can play it and have fun with it, but you’ll never know everything about it, which is pretty cool because there’s a lot to learn. There are so many variations of the rules with the refs. Not all of them have the exact same take on the rule, which is pretty cool too.”
Halderson’s contributions went beyond her leadership. She anchored the Bucks’ defense at center back after playing left back as a junior.
“She took the skills she had learned at left back and figured out how to apply them to the position she was in,” Lepping said. “That’s not me coaching her – saying specifically, ‘You have to do this in this situation.’ She was a very good figure-it-out type of kid.
“While we had explosive players ahead of her, she was that calming influence. You trusted she was always in the backfield when we needed her, and she would come up and make her presence known offensively as well, which was a fun side of it this year.”
Halderson admits she couldn’t have imagined a journey that would result in signing a letter of intent to play field hockey at Fairfield University.
“I had looked at a bunch of different schools,” she said. “The coach was interested in me. I talked to her at one of the college showcases over the summer.
“When I went to go see the campus, it had what I was looking for academically, and the athletic part was obviously there. It seemed like a good fit, and the campus is absolutely beautiful too.”
Halderson plans to pursue a career in speech therapy.
At West, she is member of Class Council and is an ambassador for the Cooking for the Homeless Club. She is a member of a club looking to start a MiniTHON at West next year. An excellent student, her course load includes AP Macro as well as honors classes.
Halderson has gotten her money’s worth out of her high school experience, but it wouldn’t have been the same without field hockey.
“As much as I hate for it to be over, it’s just an incredible year to end with, especially with the group of people and how close-knit our team was,” she said. “It really made it a special senior year and a special high school journey.”
