By Tyler Maheu, Staff Sportswriter
The Woodstock Wasps golf team is heading into the 2025 season with a new, but familiar, face at the helm.
Chris Bradley, Woodstock Class of 2023, was a student-athlete on the golf squad during his time in high school and will now lead his former team as head coach.
“I heard the former coach was stepping down, and a parent reached out to me, encouraging me to apply,” said Bradley, during a conversation with the Standard on Monday. “So I applied and got the job.” The 20-year-old takes over a unit that failed to reach the Vermont Principals’ Association playoffs, both individually and as a team, in 2024.
While Bradley says the team got a later start than he would’ve liked, only having begun practicing on Wednesday, Aug. 27, Bradley has confidence going into the year for two reasons — experience and numbers.
The Wasps return six players from last year’s team, three of whom are seniors (Ian Coates, Kyler Eaton, Beck Welch) with twelve years of high school golf experience between them. “The three seniors will most likely be playing all year,” Bradley said. “I think they will do very well this season.” His confidence in them partially comes from his time playing with them during his senior year of high school.
Although a strength, the large turnout also means that many players are coming to the team very green. Bradley says that one of his challenges will be getting the new golfers up to a starting-caliber skill level. “Navigating the skill gap between the starting lineup (five golfers in Vermont) and newer players will be tough,” he explained. “If I’m down one or two players for whatever reason, I need to get the others ready to perform in those high-level matches.”
The first-year coach is hitting the ground running this season with a lofty goal. “The goal for me, especially having been a player, is that I think we have the skill and ability to win a state championship,” Bradley declared. “The goal is obviously to get there, but the main goal is always to win it.” He recalled his experience as a player, getting close to winning the title his senior year, but falling just short. This, for him, is motivation. “I would love to see this group of guys in their final year get it done,” Bradley concluded.
The Wasps teed off their season yesterday with a home match at Woodstock Country Club.
Field Hockey
The Wasps field hockey team will be looking to make some noise in a new division in 2025.
Due to a diminishing number of players, the Woodstock field hockey team had to drop from Vermont Principals’ Association Division 2 to Division 3 for the fall season. “D3 should be very competitive,” said returning fifth-year head coach Leanne Tapley. “We are expecting it to be a strong season; we have some strong underclassmen coming up.”
Tapley, Woodstock Class of 1998, played field hockey during her time in school, and later coached the middle school field hockey team before making the leap to varsity.
While the team may be moving down a division, they will still play many of their local Division 2 rivals, as well as a Division 1 juggernaut. “We got matched up with a D1 team in Rice, so that should be a good test,” said Tapley.
After winning the state championship in 2022 and finishing runner-up in 2023, the 2024 season ended in heartbreak for the Wasps as they fell 1-0 in the semifinals to the eventual back-to-back champion, the Hartford Hurricanes.
Woodstock will look to lean on a strong offensive unit, while hoping to build the midfield to their level.
“We have several good defenders, so we moved a couple of them up to the midfield,” Tapley said. “We also changed our scheme to a 4-3-3 to give the offense more push.”
One theme Tapley repeatedly touched on in her conversation with the Standard this week was the need to improve communication as a team. “We always have things to improve on, mainly communicating and passing,” she said. “We need to make sure it is a team effort, and that no individual is trying to do it all on their own, which is impossible in a game like field hockey.”
This season, the Wasps will see not only an influx of young players to the squad, but a couple of Cosmos as well. With Springfield High School cutting field hockey for 2025, Tapley said that her team has absorbed two of their players. “They are a couple of great girls; we all just need to get used to playing with each other,” she said.
Two faces to watch for Woodstock this year are senior captains Paige Stone and Aleks Cirovic. Cirovic, says Tapley, is a defensive leader for the team. Stone returns to her spot in net for a third year to round out her high school career.
While every coach goes into the season hoping to hold the gold at the end, Tapley has loftier goals in mind as well.
“We want to grow the sport,” Tapley said, referencing field hockey’s dwindling turnout around Vermont, which has led several teams to only host varsity crews this year. “We want to have a competitive season that makes young girls want to come out and play to keep field hockey alive across the state,” stated Tapley.
