Consumed with sports and competitiveness since her preteen years, Ellie Goldstein was destined to break a few records before she graduated high school. Which is why no one is surprised that the star of Hall High School’s field hockey team has an unmatched number of goals and won the Connecticut Girls Soccer Coaches Association all-state honors. She had set a goal for herself to make 100 goals at Hall High, and even before she reached it, she was being called a scoring machine. When she was a high school sophomore, Ellie was recruited by the University of Maryland to sign a letter of intent to attend the school. That’s where she’s headed to play more field hockey and, in all likelihood, break more records.
Ellie is known for her speed and her passion on the field, which are two of many personal attributes her coaches acknowledge they would love to spread to each team member, year after year. Those are qualities she would have regardless of her chosen sport—and she did indeed first explore basketball, soccer and even ballet, before field hockey took hold of her imagination.
For eight months she was unable to play when she broke her foot and ankle. When fully healed, she trained even harder. She also joined another team out of town just to try to find other consummate players, believing the camaraderie and competition would help her improve. That’s in her athletic DNA, and as much as her athleticism motivates herself, it also motivates many other young athletes.