Field Hockey
Favorite athlete: Neymar
Favorite team: Eagles
Favorite memory competing in sports: Seeing the Northern Lights on the bus ride home from an away game
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: When my teammate (also my best friend) was a ball girl and threw the ball 15 feet into the air and almost hit a referee
Music on playlist: 2010s songs
Future plans: Attend college and play club field hockey
Words to live by: “Focus on the present not the past.”
One goal before turning 30: Visit a desert
One thing people don’t know about me: I enjoy watching storm chasing videos
By Craig Ostroff
PFH … stands for Pennridge Field Hockey.
But as first-year coach Chris Chookagian attempts to instill a new culture in the program, those three letters took on a different meaning this season.
PFH … Perseverance, Fearlessness, Humility.
As part of the process, Chookagian set up a leadership team of two representatives from each class, and had the team vote on three PFH captains, who represent those traits of perseverance, fearlessness, and humility.
It was no surprise to Chookagian that Suzan Eraydin was elected as one of the leaders.
“Suz helped set us up for success by being a leader and a voice on the team,” Chookagian said. “We worked to redevelop the whole program culture during preseason, we’d have an on-field session and then an off-field session about, ‘This is the program now,’ and for the seniors, it was ‘What do you want the program to look like in 4 years?’
“Suz stepped up as a leader in that aspect, being part of the heart of the team and uniting the underclassmen with the upperclassmen.”
Being a leader and helping lay the foundation of a new culture was no easy feat for the Pennridge seniors and returning players. Chookagian is the third head coach in three years for a program that has not had a winning season in more than a decade but saw a surprisingly high 48 girls come out for the team this year.
“I was honestly surprised I was voted as a captain, I’m usually not a very outspoken person,” Eraydin said. “But I was very glad. It’s been a great experience to help out everyone on the team.
“I wanted to be a quiet leader, just help people with the little things. I wanted to be someone who could lead by example. And I want everyone to have fun.”
While Eraydin was happy to answer the call to be a team captain, she couldn’t have expected what was to be asked of her on the field. Because while many of the team’s 48 players were not yet ready to log a ton of minutes at the varsity level, there was a player ready to step in at left midfielder.
The problem with that – Eraydin plays left middie.
But with the team needing help on the back line and knowing how experienced and versatile Eraydin was, Chookagian moved her to left back to help shore up the defense.
To say it was unexpected would be an understatement.
“It was really difficult, to be honest,” Eraydin said of the position switch. “Last year I played left mid, and in club I always played left mid. So when Coach Chris asked me to play defense, I was a little nervous. Originally, I thought I had done something wrong, I wasn’t sure why I was being asked to move. It’s a position I did not know very well, or at all.”
“At first, she was a little bit apprehensive about it,” Chookagian said. “But we talked about it, that the team had a need and she had the experience and we knew she’d be able to fill that spot for us. There’s always the concern that, ‘I’ve never played there before, I don’t know what to do.’ But you explain it to them, ‘You do know what to do. Everything you already do, it’s all the same skills. You might be doing some skills more often in the back than you do in the mid, but it’s still all the same skills.’
“Over the season, you could see how she started feeling comfortable in that space. I loved her attitude to agree to play a new position and to work and get better at it.”
And the position change gave Eraydin a new appreciation for the game she loves.
“I think making the switch made me more well-rounded,” she said. “It helped me understand how the game works better, and it allowed me to advance my skills and my field hockey IQ. I’m really glad that I became a defender.”
While Chookagian jokingly refers to Eraydin as a “ball magnet” during her time in the backfield, the three-year varsity player and two-year starter has the bruises to prove that she was just that. Eraydin sustained a ball to the forehead in one game, and shattered her right thumb in another game in late September. She wore a splint on her thumb the rest of the season, but said the injury didn’t affect her game or the way she held her stick.
“Honestly, I just kind of learned to just put myself in front of the ball,” she said. “I don’t think I’m the type of person to be afraid of the ball, I just put myself in front.”
Eraydin didn’t only earn bandages and splints for her efforts, though. The Rams recognized her with the Fearless Defender Award at the end of the season.
“Suz was not afraid to take a hit or make a stop,” Chookagian said. “For some reason, all the other teams really found a way to put the ball into her foot. She’d have people running into her and taking her out. A lot of
players don’t want to do that, or once it starts happening, ‘I don’t want to do this anymore.’ But Suz never complained. That’s the type of player you want on your team and the type of leader you want your younger kids to see.”
“It really meant a lot to me to be recognized,” Eraydin said. “It showed that my work paid off and other people could see how determined I was to help the team. It meant a lot to me, and hopefully it shows the younger players that you have to do what the team needs you to do.”
Though the switch to defense meant Eraydin would have to sacrifice goals and assists in favor of field hockey ball-sized bumps and bruises, Eraydin did find the back of the cage in a 2-1 loss to Central Bucks East midway through the season.
“Because of the transition to left back, Suz didn’t have the statistics … she wasn’t in a position where she had been, supporting the team with goals or assists. But she definitely shut down a lot of our opponents, and our opponents were tough. Our conference was stacked. We were the only Suburban One conference that sent every team to the playoffs.”
“Every team” included the Rams, who made their triumphant return to the PIAA District One tournament for the first time since 2019. It was a goal the team had set in those preseason talks, and though the 23rd-seeded Rams were dispatched 3-0 to 10th-seeded Plymouth Whitemarsh in the opening round, the experience was one that was both a culmination of the team’s hard work this season and, quite possibly, a taste of things to come.
“One of our goals was to make it to districts, and I was really proud of the team that we made it,” Eraydin said. “We lost in the first round, but it was a fun experience. Our team chemistry improved a lot from the beginning of the season to the end, we started really working well together as the season went on. And hopefully for next year and the years after, that connection will be stronger and they’ll get back there and go further than we did this year.”
•••
While Eraydin does her best to be a leader on and off the athletic fields, she is also a prime example for the younger players that you can excel both on the athletic fields and in the classroom. The senior is among the top students at Pennridge High School, and her senior course load is packed with the likes of AP Calculus, AP Spanish, AP Government and Politics, and Honors Sociology.
Eraydin is also a member of the school’s National Honor Society and the Sunshine Club, which organizes events and fundraisers to help support students who need help paying for things such as prom tickets and outfits.
“I remember looking up to the seniors when I was a freshman and hearing how they had 4.0 GPAs, were in clubs, did community service. That made a huge impact on me,” Eraydin said. “Me and the other seniors want to leave that kind of impact for the underclassmen.”
“It’s imperative in establishing a culture that the younger kids have people like Suz to look up to,” Chookagian said. “We’ve had that conversation – they are student-athletes, they’re high school students, and a lot of our girls might not play club hockey, they’re involved more in afterschool activities and things in the community. I put a big emphasis on the whole person, not just the athlete, and having someone like Suz to look at and see how she’s a great player on the field and also does so well in the classroom, it’s something they need to see.”
Eraydin doesn’t know exactly where she’ll be next year. She’s early in the process of applying to colleges and is leaving all options open in terms of size, location, and major. While she’d like to continue playing field hockey in college, she acknowledges that it will likely be at the club or intramural level.
“It’s important to me to play field hockey in college if I can,” said Eraydin, who’s been playing since sixth grade. “I’ve spent so many years of my life playing the sport, to just give it up wouldn’t make much sense. And I really enjoy playing.”
More than anything else, that may be the key to Eraydin’s success. The competition is important, but the enjoyment is critical as well. It’s not worth it if it’s not fun.
“There aren’t a lot of players in high school now that you can truly see them playing just for the love of the game and she’s definitely one of those types of players,” Chookagian said. “She’s coachable, she wants to compete at the highest level possible, but she also loves the game and wants to make sure that not only is she having fun out there, but the rest of the team is as well.”
And while Eraydin and her senior teammates never got to experience a winning season, or a District One Playoff victory, she believes the foundation that the team has set this season will pay off in the years to come. And if the Rams start racking up wins, league titles, and district and state playoff appearances, she’s content in knowing she was a part of helping put that in motion.
“If the team is successful in the future, knowing we helped start that … that’s definitely enough,” she said.
But the returning players are going to have to work hard to build off of what was established this season. The 13-member senior class will leave quite a few holes that will need to be filled, maybe none more so than at left back.
“Losing Suz, we lose a part of the team that – especially when you’re resetting the culture the way we did – you lose that in the sense that the people are going to look at the part of the field and think, ‘Oh, that’s where Suz was,” or turn to a passing partner and she’s not going to be there. But the model she set and the way she carried herself on the field is how these players will now look to carry themselves on the field.
“Her presence will be missed. Wherever she ends up next year, they get a student that’s going to meet and exceed their expectations. If she joins a club hockey team, she’s going to give to them what she gave to us in terms of effort and growth. Whatever club or activity she’s involved in, I can’t imagine she wouldn’t give anything but 100 percent.
“As a coach, part of my philosophy, I say you want to try to be the greatest version of yourself. And I think with everything Suz does for the team on and off the field, in the classroom, in the community, she really does embody the greatest version of herself.”
