Five F. Hockey seniors live through change

Five senior Penn field hockey players close their careers tomorrow. Sophomore midfielder Leah Bills had to linger behind the rest of her team one evening late in the season last year -- after the clocks had been turned back and the practices of the Penn field hockey squad had become night affairs. She was having difficulty with some tape on her ankle, and the team had already disappeared into the portico leading to their lockers in Weightman Hall. All but five players, that is. Just as Bills began to feel herself alone under the lights and deserted stands of Franklin Field, she realized that five other players were lingering behind as well -- the five juniors on the team -- and they weren't having equipment problems as she was. They had only been waiting off to the side for one of their group to return with a football from the locker room. Upon the ball's retrieval, they started to play catch and line up for field goals, laughing and taking playful shots at each other as they went along. Bills watched them in surprise, no longer aware that the tape on her ankle had fallen off and she had become free to go back to the locker room. That's the kind of impression the five seniors on the field hockey team this year -- co-captains Michele Canuso-Bedesem and Emmy Hansel, Erica and Tara Childs, and Amy Meehan -- will make on the memories of their younger teammates. "They're such good friends," Bills said. "It definitely has rubbed off on the rest on us." Indeed, the spirit of those late-night football meetings has lent itself to the attitude of the entire team. "We're always doing stuff together," Bills said. "We're always fooling around, and a lot of it is because of the closeness they [the seniors] have with each other." Close seems to be an understatement when describing the relationship among Canuso-Bedesem, the Childs sisters, Hansel and Meehan. And no, it's not the type of closeness that results among lawyers heading a law firm as an outsider might think after hearing their names rapidly in succession. Instead, the relationship they have involves trying to get the other off the couch for NBC prime time -- although they have been known to make defense strategies work on the field as well as high-powered attorneys would in the courtroom. The five lived together sophomore year in high rise community living and then, even when four decided to get a house together, the fifth, Canuso-Bedesem, found herself spending more time at the residence of her teammates than her own. "It's been a lot of fun," Canuso-Bedesem said of the experience of living with the others. "And besides, it gives us a chance to make sure we're on time for bus trips to games on the weekend." Canuso-Bedesem's remark about wake-up calls was made tongue in cheek, as it refers to Hansel's ability to oversleep on occasion. But it goes without saying that there will not be any tired eyes tomorrow night when the group plays its final home game at Franklin Field. That night, they will be facing arch-rival, and first-place Princeton (11-2, 5-0) at 7 p.m., but while Penn (10-6, 3-3) can no longer win the Ivy League, the game will have great importance to the group. "I know it sounds a little cheesy, but every time I stand out there on the line for the national anthem, it means a little something," Canuso-Bedesem said. "It's been that way since the beginning." Canuso-Bedesem can remember the start of their careers vividly, as can the rest of the group. They had come to Penn on the heels of two Ivy League championship teams, and a long history of success. "We rarely lost throughout the '80s," Quakers coach Val Cloud said. "Disappointment wasn't something we felt around here to often." The streak of success began almost with the program's birth in 1979, compiling a record seven Ivy League titles and numerous second-place finishes. But Penn's unparalleled dominance began to wane at the time of the group's arrival on campus. "Pennsylvania is such a hotbed of field hockey talent and so is South Jersey," Tara Childs said. "It gave Penn a big edge at first, but it's gotten popular all over the place now." According to Cloud, these changes led to a more even distribution of talent across the Ivies, and this along with some coaching changes for the better and the decision of more high school senior women to take an Ivy League education over a scholarship, made the league more competitive. "They wanted to and expected to win titles like the groups before them," Cloud said of her five seniors. "It just became a tougher goal to reach." However, their presence at Penn during the change in the Ivy League field hockey balance of power more clearly defined the legacy of those five seniors. "They showed us how to deal with these changes and this new age here when things aren't going to be as easy," Cloud said. In fact, their coach went so far as to talk about how their presence has made the transition easier than it could have been. "I hadn't experienced much of losing in my 18 years here and we all had a hard time at first dealing with it," said Cloud, a long-time assistant before taking the reins in 1995. "But having them around to be positive and competitive helped me and the team get through it and set a tone for underclassman here." Cloud specifically recalled the day following a loss to Dartmouth this season when her seniors exhibited that competitiveness. "We had lost a tough one the day before," she said. "But they were ready to keep going despite disappointment and we won our next one against Lafayette." Lafayette and the rest of their victories and losses have faded into the background for the five, as past games always do before a big one that demands their focus and attention. Today they'll be serious during practice, ready for the Tigers and any of that first-place confidence they might bring to Franklin Field tomorrow. But one has to wonder, if their game faces and focus will yield, if only for a little while, to remember all the times after practice when Canuso-Bedesem snapped it to Tara taking the hold, and Meehan kicked toward the uprights while Hansel and Erica joked at her form.