In the span of a five games, the Chapel Hill High School varsity field hockey team had three different coaches.
Previous head coach, Anna Long, moved to Washington D.C. at the end of last season, and Wendy Bennett was chosen as the Long’s replacement. After Bennett resigned in September, the team had to look for a new coach with the season already under way.
Rachelle White, who had spent several years as the head coach of the junior varsity (JV) team, moved up to coach varsity.
“Varsity level coaching is fine tuning the skill and taking it to a higher level. I think my role is to support and help the girls to play as team and help them to perform at their best,” White said.
Previous JV assistant coach Brooke Sobolewski, who played field hockey for Chapel Hill High School herself, replaced White as the head coach for the JV team.
“Now that I am a head coach the work load has definitely increased, and I am responsible for devising practice plans and being prepared with team line-ups for games,” Sobolewski said.
Junior Isabel Balderson, who plays on the varsity team, felt that the process to find a new coach disrupted the beginning of the season. “There were a lot of meetings with Principal Jackson and the coaches,” Balderson said. “It was more trying to figure out what was going on than actually practicing.”
The varsity team is led by senior captains Bryn Davis and Ines Yofre and junior captain Christina Valentin. The team finished the regular season with a 11-8 record and lost to East Chapel Hill in the second round of the state playoffs.
