Saratoga High School graduate Betsy Masiello, 20, who plays field hockey for Wellesley College, was named the Most Valuable Player of the Seven Sisters Field Hockey Championship, which recently took place at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Mass.
Photograph courtesy of Wellesley College
A former Saratoga High student stars in field hockey at Wellesley
By Rebecca Ray
When Betsy Masiello was growing up in Saratoga, her parents, Ralph and Suzanne, wanted her to take dance classes. But Masiello wanted to stick with soccer and Little League baseball, which she thought were more fun. Evidently, her love of sports paid off. Masiello, 20, who graduated from Saratoga High School in 1999, was named Most Valuable Player in September 2001 at the Seven Sisters Field Hockey Championship, which took place recently at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Mass.
Masiello, a junior computer science major, is co-captain of the field hockey team at Wellesley College, an all-women's school in Wellesley, Mass. At the 2001 Seven Sisters tournament, Masiello scored four goals and notched one assist in three games. She had also been the tournament MVP the previous year.
Masiello, a 2000 National Field Hockey Coaches Association All-American Third Team member, is already the third all-time leading scorer in Wellesley College history, with 74 points. Shortly after the 2001 season began in September, the New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference named her Player of the Week. Masiello, a midfielder, led her team in points this season with 16, as of Oct. 3.
Sue Landau, head coach of the Wellesley field hockey team, says Masiello didn't come in with a complete package of skills her freshman year, but has become a dominant Division 3 player. Although Masiello started her freshman year and was a significant contributor, Landau said, she needed to develop her speed, stamina, ball control, vision, strength, one-on-one skills and power in hitting the ball. But now Masiello "moves the ball pretty hard," Landau said, and advances it "quickly and explosively," often moving around defending players.
"Because she's such a dominant player, she leads by example," Landau said. "We really look to her for all those strengths because it helps us to be more successful."
The team had seven wins and two losses, as of Oct. 3, and won the Seven Sisters tournament, which took place Sept. 15 and 16, for the third year in a row. Masiello hopes the team will finish first in its conference like it did in 2000, and that it will earn a berth to the National College Athletic Association tournament, which would be her first.
For Masiello, not only is field hockey fun, but moving and hitting a ball with a stick is also more challenging than playing a sport like soccer or volleyball, where one touches the ball directly, she said.
Masiello started playing field hockey as a freshman in high school, where she also played soccer and softball, served on student government and graduated with high honors. She took up field hockey because she wanted to play a fall sport, and preferred outdoor to indoor sports.
In high school, Masiello played varsity softball all four years, and made the all-league team her junior and senior years. She also made the All-Central Coast Section team for field hockey as a senior.
Although Masiello had played soccer and softball since she was 6, field hockey won out as the sport she would play in college. She expected to play college softball until her senior year. By then, the sport had gotten too political for her. "It wasn't fun anymore," she said.
Masiello chose Wellesley because of its proximity to Boston and its reputation as an excellent academic institution. Also, she decided a Division 3 school would be a better fit for her than a Division 1 school.
Playing soccer or softball for Wellesley was out of the question, since the women's college soccer and field hockey seasons overlap on the East Coast, and Wellesley doesn't have a softball team.
Masiello chose to study computer science because she likes problem solving and that the high tech industry is always changing. "It never gets boring or old," she said.
Masiello, who attended Saratoga Elementary and Redwood Middle Schools, is also involved in a mentorship program for first-year students, where she helps them adjust to their first few weeks of college.
When she actually has free time, she enjoys hanging out in Boston and meeting students from other colleges, including co-ed schools. She likes Boston because there's always something to do, and the city is not "overwhelmingly big," she said.
Masiello's parents and brother also live on the East Coast. Ralph and Suzanne moved from Saratoga to Solebury, Penn., in April 2001, because Ralph, who works in software engineering and systems control, got a job in New York. And Masiello's brother, David, 26, who graduated Saratoga High School in 1994, attends Boston University School of Medicine.
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