Senior Athletes Have College Destinations Set

This marks a special time of year for high school seniors, more so for the seniors that represented their respective schools in sports. and the had a number of special seniors that will leave with a number of special memories.

For Haverford High School’s Jill Root, and for a number of Haverford School lacrosse players, their athletic career will not end at the high school. What they did at high school was deemed good enough to succeed in college.

Root departs as a three-sport athlete, someone who excelled in soccer, where she’s going to Monmouth University on a soccer scholarship, and she figures she’s played roughly 220 varsity games. The Fords’ lacrosse team will separate and they will all leave the Haverford School with the rare nugget of being the best in the country—as one of the greatest sports team in the Philadelphia area and the best lacrosse team ever in the area.

“I think I’ll always look back on my high school career with a lot of great memories, and as a great time in my life, but it closes a chapter and I have to get ready for Monmouth,” Root said. “I really didn’t think it would hit me as hard as it did when I played my last lacrosse game. I had some great times here, times I’ll remember for the rest of my life. Sometimes, you never think it’s going to end. I suppose that was the toughest part when it was over, and you start a new chapter. It was upsetting that last game. I just didn’t think it would catch me like that. One second I was talking, and laughing, and you know it’s coming. It was just hard when it got here.”

There were 12 seniors on Haverford School’s national champion lacrosse team, all headed to play college lacrosse.

• Conor Kelly
• Colin Heffernan
• Carl Walrath
• Hup Hupfeldt
• Brent Tomlinson
• Joe McCallion
• Brendan McGrath
• Matt Walters
• Grove Stewart
• Alex Beatty
• Goran Murray
• Vince Garman

“We’re all going our separate ways, and I’ll be playing against some of my teammates from Haverford School in college, but you can say there is a special bond between us all,” said Murray, who’s headed to the University of Maryland. “We all realize how special this team was, and we’ll always have this year together. I know a lot of things are going to change when we all get to college. It’s great knowing where you’re going to school, after high school, and for a lot of us, we all knew as juniors. But the most important thing is that we all had this past year together and we did everything we set out to do.”

The  School finished a monumental season by going 23-0 overall, taking on the best teams in the country. Their winning streak was good enough to elevate the Fords as the No. 1 boys’ lacrosse team in the nation, thanks to a 5-4 victory over Malvern Prep in the Inter-Academic League Invitational championship.

“The last game we played together was emotional, I’ll admit it,” said Kelly, the Fords’ goalie who’s headed to Notre Dame. “It is like a family. And knowing a lot of us knew where we were going to college made things a lot easier this season. You can just play and enjoy your senior year. I think everyone on our team had a great time this year, something you can say is unforgettable.”

Student-College destination

• Jill Root – Monmouth
• Conor Kelly – Notre Dame
• Colin Heffernan – Dartmouth
• Carl Walrath – Virginia
• Hup Hupfeldt – Penn
• Brent Tomlinson – Brown
• Joe McCallion – Penn
• Brendan McGrath – Princeton
• Matt Walters – Syracuse
• Grove Stewart – Harvard
• Alex Beatty – Princeton
• Goran Murray – Maryland
• Vince Garman – High Point