Amelia Thomas started playing field hockey in sixth grade because the Hopkinton Middle School team needed extra players. With some encouragement from her mother, a former Kearsarge High field hockey player, Thomas gave the sport a try.
Over the course of seven years, Thomas transformed herself from an extra into a star.
She became the Middle School team MVP as a seventh-grader. She started on the Hopkinton High varsity team as a freshman. And this year, as a senior, Thomas led the Hawks to the Division III final, was named the D-III Player of the Year and is the Monitor’s Field Hockey Player of the Season.
“She was ready to play at the varsity level as a freshman, she had a lot of skill, but she also really wanted to learn and she was eager to get better all the time,” Hopkinton coach Patty Connolly said. “Being with the older girls on varsity isn’t always the place for a lot of freshmen, but it was definitely the place for Amelia because she just fit right in and then she soaked it all up … every single year she grew.”
Thomas also looked outside of Hopkinton for growth opportunities. She went to the University of New Hampshire field hockey camp for three straight summers starting in 2013. Then in 2017, between her sophomore and junior years, she went to a camp at UMass-Lowell and earned MVP honors.
“I really enjoyed going to those camps because not only did I get to work with the college players, but I got to see other girls that weren’t from my small, little town,” said Thomas, who has also been playing club field hockey for Seacoast for two years. “It helped me a lot. There was huge growth for my game after going to those camps.”
She also grew by working out in her basement, where space was cleared so she could hone her stick skills. That was probably better than using the space to store broken-down bicycles, unused gym equipment or other basement debris.
“Her top skill is her dribbling and her stick work. She is very talented as far as being able to maneuver in a crowd and in the circle,” Connolly said. “She has one of the best sticks around, and by far the best in Division III.”
As good as she is offensively, Thomas is just as good on defense. She began her varsity career on that end of the field, which she said established her defensive mindset. She also said that basketball, the sport she has played the longest, has fine-tuned her anticipation skills, which is critical when it comes to breaking up the other team’s attack.
Field hockey has also aided Thomas on the basketball court, where she earned D-III Honorable Mention last year after helping Hopkinton reach the D-III final.
“Field hockey is a lot of legs, it’s is a big leg sport, and doing all that helps me in basketball with staying low on defense and working on my defensive skills,” Thomas said.
Thomas and the Hawks rode their field hockey legs to a 12-2 regular-season record this fall, which earned them the No. 2 seed in the D-III tournament. Thomas scored two goals in Hopkinton’s 4-0 quarterfinal win against No. 10 Newport. In the semifinals against defending champion Gilford, Thomas assisted on the opening goal when she lofted a free hit into the air and 30 yards downfield, landing it perfectly into the path of Katie Meserve, who controlled the ball and scored.
“It was a really beautiful pass,” Meserve said after the game.
Thomas converted a penalty stroke later in the first half for what proved to the game-winning goal in the 2-1 semifinal win. The Hawks finished the season 14-3 after losing in the championship to top-seeded Mascoma, 1-0, but that final loss didn’t diminish a season that was full of memorable moments for Hopkinton.
“The highlight could be beating Bishop Brady when they were undefeated, or when (Connolly) came back (from spending time away after the death of her husband) or really anything every day in practice because we just had a lot of fun in general,” Thomas said.
Thomas also plays lacrosse, but that’s the one sport she’s definitely going to drop when she gets to college. As of now, she’s hoping to play both field hockey and basketball at Regis College in Weston, Mass. She still has to be accepted to the school, but Thomas already has a spot on the field hockey team lined up and she’s in the process of talking to the women’s basketball coach.
Playing two sports in college is ambitious, but it would be foolish to bet against Thomas.
“She has been so dedicated right from the get-go to be a college player and to be the absolute best she could be,” Connolly said.
(Tim O’Sullivan can be reached at 369-3341 or tosullivan@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @timosullivan20)