The Salisbury field hockey program seemingly came from nowhere this season to reach the finals in both the league and district playoffs, finishing with a 17-5-0 overall record.

At the beginning of the season, achieving those goals might have seemed to be setting the bar a little high. The team had not been to the Colonial League playoffs since 2003 and its record in district playoffs was spotty at best.

Under head coach Jane Brennan, the team had started to show signs of life, but this season’s team came in with just two seniors – Maya Afif and Lauren Kushma – on the roster and 12 of the 21 players were either freshmen or sophomores.

“We all wanted to be here, but getting here was going to be a longshot,” said Brennan following the Falcons’ win over Southern Lehigh in the Colonial League semifinals last month. “We haven’t been to league playoffs in over 20 years, and for me, this is my first experience so I am feeling blessed and I know the girls feel very blessed and are ecstatic about being here.”

Kushma joined the team after playing with powerhouse Emmaus last season and transferring to Allentown Central Catholic. Salisbury and Central Catholic have a co-op program that allows student-athletes at Central to play for Salisbury teams if their sport is not one of the varsity programs that Central Catholic sponsors.

The addition of Kushma helped the Salisbury offense thanks to her 24 goals and 19 assists. Her presence and personality also helped several players to improve throughout the season, which will have lasting effects.

Afif was third on the team in goals with 21 and she also added three assists as another key piece of the Falcons offensive attack.

Outside of the two seniors who helped the offensive attack, three juniors scored double-digit goals for Salisbury this season.

Gwyn DeFazio finished just behind Kushma in goals with 22 and tied for the team lead in assists with 19. Classmates Kendra Morgan (12 goals) and Sarah Beckage (11 goals) also contributed to the scoring. Morgan also picked up eight assists for the Falcons during the 2024 season.

Sophomores Ellie Schneider and Katie Carbone both scored seven goals and Schneider finished third on the team in assists with 11. The Falcons also got four goals from their five freshmen that were on the roster this year.

The defensive unit came together during the season and turned into a strength of the team.

Next year’s defense should be even better than this year’s version since it doesn’t suffer any losses from graduation.

“The defense has worked so hard and been so strong,” said Brennan after a loss to Southern Lehigh in last week’s district championship game. “When it comes to our defense, the future is really bright for us, and we’ll be very competitive again next year. I can’t wait; we’re definitely not done.”

Brennan saw her younger players develop throughout the summer practices and the regular season and believes they will continue to show development to become even stronger players for the 2025 season.

“We have two starting freshman (Ella Morgans and Ryley Shoemaker) and they have grown exponentially,” said Brennan. “They started with us in the summer, and I can’t wait to see their future. Actually, the future is bright for all of [our] younger players because of how hard they worked and the help they received from upperclassmen. It’s going to be an exciting time for field hockey at Salisbury.”