Everyone watches women’s sports, and in Montauk this fall, the girls field hockey team put on quite a show. The 2025 Montauk School field hockey team finished the season 9-0-1 late last month with a 5-0 win against East Hampton in the final game to go undefeated for the first time since 2018. The Montauk Fire Department escorted the team’s bus home afterward, and a fresh banner will go up in the school gym to celebrate the achievement.
“This field hockey season was truly magical,” Joshua Odom, the school’s superintendent and principal, said. “Our girls embodied the characteristics of our community: tenacity, courage, hard work, but also support for each other, teamwork, and positivity. . . . The Fire Department escort and parade around town places an exclamation point on this; we can’t thank them enough! Everyone in Montauk is so proud of these girls and their coaches! Go Mustangs!”
What made this team so special? Grit.
“These kids could take constructive criticism and didn’t get beaten down by it,” their coach, Jenn Jamet, said. She’s led the program with Kalie Burkle for eight years. “They wanted to put in the work, and they wanted to improve.”
Montauk’s midfield was exceptionally strong — led by two eighth graders, Sofia Bourke and Mia Coppola, and a seventh grader, Riley O’Brien, who limited action in front of their defense and the net.
Seven of Montauk’s nine victories were shutouts, and the team never allowed more than one goal, even when missing some of its top performers.
“During one of our games, we lost a player to injury and were missing Bourke. We had to fill spots with players who weren’t used to playing there,” Coach Burkle said. “Seventh grader Maggie Shea, who usually plays forward, stepped in to help, and the whole team worked together to achieve the goal: a win” — 2-0 over East Hampton.
Burkle and Jamet stressed that kind of flexibility throughout the season, teaching the girls about field positioning, supporting their teammates, and understanding each player’s role on the field. And their players caught on quickly.
“This group just meshed,” Jamet said. “Our eighth graders took the seventh graders under their wings, and they became very close. They banded together. It was never a one-woman show.”
Bourke, a captain, credits her coaches with building those bonds. “Coach Burkle and Coach Jamet gave us 100 percent every day, encouraging us, believing in us, and playing to our strengths and weaknesses as a team,” she said. “This led to a team that was so connected on and off the field.”
Phoebe Abrams, Avery Boerem, Maia Kabisch, and Charlotte Vickers stood out in scoring, leading the Mustangs to 23 goals this season, nine of them in the last two games.
“I’ll always remember the final countdown of our final game on the turf field,” Coppola, who is also a captain, said of East Hampton’s new Hon. Fred W. Thiele Jr. Recreational Facility, “knowing that it would be my last game as a Montauk player, but also that it would mark our undefeated season.”
Nine of this year’s 18 Mustangs are eighth graders who will head to East Hampton High School next year. Should they choose to stick with the sport, Nicole Ficeto, one of the varsity field hockey coaches, believes they’ll be an asset. “They are a cohesive unit with a team-first mentality. Incoming freshmen who do stay will add depth to the program,” she said.
Her sister and co-coach, Danielle Schuster, is excited to see what they can do. “Montauk has been turning out some competitive athletes over the years,” she said. “Our current team is well represented with them. I look forward to welcoming them to the team next year.”
Back in Montauk, Coach Jamet is looking forward to another strong season in 2026, pointing out how motivated and driven the seventh graders were this year. She expects they’ll be great leaders next fall, with an undefeated banner in the Montauk School gym rafters to remind them what they can do.