All Saints’ Varsity Field Hockey, Football, and Volleyball teams traveled Northeast for exposure to a handful of colleges, and universities in the Northeast while also playing games against other like-minded, high school teams.

The Varsity Football team, and Varsity Field Hockey teams played and won against Episcopal Academy, a high school located in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania. The Varsity Volleyball team came out on top of two separate teams from the local area, Cherry High School and Princeton High School.

In addition to competitive games, the trip also encompassed college visits. The five colleges around the area that each team visited were John Hopkins, Lafayette, University of Pennsylvania, Princeton, and Villanova.

“Lafayette was my favorite college that we visited. It had the perfect balance of academics, and football,” said David Beck ’19.

Field Hockey player Lucy Reason ’19 and Volleyball player Elizabeth Hosman ’19, enjoyed Villanova’s campus describing it as a perfect sized campus with the perfect sized classes.

“I really liked the architecture of the buildings. The campus had a very welcoming vibe,” said Hosman.

This trip opened up new ideas as to where each student would like to attend college geographically.

“Before the trip I was not even considering any schools from outside the southern part of the United States, and now I am looking into Villanova,” said Hosman.

However there were some who still want to go to school in the South.

“I already knew that I want to go to college in the South, so the trip did not really change my mind. But it was still cool to look at other colleges and compare them to the ones I have already looked at,” said Reason. 

While the Football team was visiting the University of Pennsylvania, John Paul Flores ’18 the head coach presented Flores with a formal offer to play football at Penn.

“It was a great feeling,” said Flores. “You put in a lot of work and to see it pay off in an actual offer is satisfying.”

The idea originally started when Coach Beck met Episcopal Academy’s Head Football Coach, Todd Fairlie, who inquired about using Young Field for their middle school team.

“That sparked the idea of getting our teams up to the Northeast to play against Episcopal Academy and then incorporate multiple college visits as an integral part of the process for our own student-athletes. It really turned into a win-win situation,” said Daniel Carroll, one of the defensive line football coaches.

A lot of different people from multiple departments assisted with planning the trip such as the Business Office, Upper School, and Athletics, to name a few.

“Coach Beck had a lot of contacts at each university the groups visited, and Coach Weaver attended and played field hockey in college in Virginia and up in the Northeast,” Carroll said. All Saints’ Booster Club covered roughly half of the cost, making it more affordable for the parents.

Lastly, in regards to aspirations for future trips, Carroll said, “Whether next year or the following, we have discussed the potential of a West Coast trip, but no plans have begun to unfold as of yet.”