The Red & White

From the sidelines, you will see Ava Schmidt ’26 on the field with her fast ball movement and speed, easily sliding through defenders to get a goal off a corner. This season, Schmidt is a passionate and hard-working player on the Girls Varsity Field Hockey team. Ava started playing the sport early on in her hometown of Hamburg, Germany. 

While field hockey in Europe is very different from here, her dedication and love for the sport have remained the same. Growing up playing field hockey in Hamburg was a very different experience from here, as Schmidt makes clear when she states, “At home it’s very serious because I grew up with my teammates and my family’s interest in the sport, with my dad and brother.” Schmidt was grateful to share her involvement in the sport with her family and play on the same team in Germany for her whole life. 

When she arrived on the hilltop, joining a new field hockey team was challenging, but eventually it led to so many new friendships with her new teammates. Schmidt started here as a new sophomore and was placed in a dorm with freshmen. This challenge may have seemed difficult at times, but she managed to find her best friend and teammate, Este Stifel ’27. Schmidt and Stifel have been close from the very beginning and always share great moments and goals together on the field. This friendship is important to Schmidt because she has found a friend on her team who feels like family. The team culture has given her a “home away from home” here on the hilltop, as Schmidt happily expresses, “At school we live with our teammates, which is more like family. We’re always here to support one another on and off the field”. 

Now in her final year on the Hilltop, Schmidt lives with many of her teammates in the dorm and picks up a stick daily and walks to the turf for practice–even during the off-season. This new experience also allows her to be coached by a new set of coaches, which may bring an even greater level of success to the field. Differently from Hamburg, every year the team changes–people graduate and new freshmen join the team. Schmidt shares, “Every year, new people come and seniors graduate, but the new players manage to fill those spots and the team culture stays the same.” 

Schmidt has been a member of the St. George’s Girls Field Hockey team for three years now and has taken advantage of every opportunity to build her skills and support her teammates. She is looking forward to watching this team continue their hard work and grow as her final season progresses. She encourages her younger teammates, as she advises them to “be grateful to be a part of this team while at St. George’s because we are more like a family. Cherish that we always say hello to one another with a smile on our faces during the school day. Most importantly, I hope that the younger members on the team can still show up and bring the attitude to become one percent better every day.” Schmidt’s last year is coming to a close, but she will always be appreciative of being a part of the Girls Varsity Field Hockey team during her time at St. George’s and the lifelong memories and friendships she has made.