TO PHILLY AND BEYOND
Abbie Searles heads to the ‘City of Brotherly Love’ once her Saratoga career is finished
SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY » The Saratoga Springs senior lacrosse goalie, Abbie Searles, one day hopes to work for NASA or SpaceX, but she isn’t planning on leaving the planet anytime soon.
Once her time is up at Saratoga High School, she’ll be headed to the City of Brotherly Love.
“Next year I’ll be attending the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and I’ll be playing lacrosse down there,” Searles said. “I’m looking to study physics.”
“I’d love to work for either NASA or SpaceX in research and development.”
The recruiting process went pretty quickly for Searles to become a Quaker.
“I played club lacrosse for ADK one of my coaches told me that Penn had expressed interest in me, that they had reached out,” she said.
“Initially I was worried because it was such a big school. But then I went down there and got a feel for the campus, met the coaches and I really loved it. They had my major and they had a strong lacrosse program. They were very supportive of each other and that
was a big component.”
Prior to the Ivy League suspending athletic competitions for the remainder of the Spring 2020 season, the Quakers went 4-1, losing only to Loyola.
“I love Franklin Field. It’s gorgeous and it’s historical,” Searles said on her favorite part of campus, adding, “you can’t beat the food in Philly.”
The University of Pennsylvania’s women’s lacrosse team is coached by Karin Corbett, who has led Penn to 11 Ivy League Championships in the last 13 seasons and has been the leader of the program since 2000. Searles has been in touch with her college coaches throughout the coronavirus outbreak.
“My coach reached out to see how things were going. We just check in on each other. We talked about how tough this is, especially for those seniors, whose senior season had been cut short. We briefly talked about how it was similar for me, but not quite the same because I still have more lacrosse to look forward to and just how this is really tough.”
The future Penn goalie has also been able to spend some time with her future teammates, going to various tournaments and workouts with other Quaker recruits.
“We go to some tournaments and play as a team. We went to the Commit Academy and also went to Lake Placid last year. Both of those tournaments were great times to connect with my future teammates. Penn also holds quite a few camps, just so we can get used to playing with each other.”
While Searles has a plan for the next four years, the next three months are where the question marks exist. She talked about the moment the Blue Streaks’ season was suspended due to the virus.
“At first I was excited because I thought it would just be the following Monday and then an extra spring break or something. Then, as I started thinking about it more, I was like, wow, this is going to start impacting my senior academics and senior lacrosse season. It was very disappointing and frustrating,” she said, while also discussing her thoughts coming into the season. “I was very excited, it was my senior season, I was ready to go out there and win some games with some of my favorite people. We were all very excited.
She remembered back to her sophomore season, when Saratoga took home the Section 2 Championship.
“There was just so much chemistry on that team. We didn’t really have to run any plays. We just knew where each other would be on the field. Everything flowed really well.”
There were similar hopes for this season, to replicate what they had accomplished in 2018.
“I had hopes of another sectional title. There’s a lot of talent and a lot of potential on this team. We all have been playing together for so long and we have a lot of chemistry. It felt good, like it was going to be a good season; there were a lot of high hopes.”
“We’ve all been on the same team since elementary school or middle school.”
While lacrosse has dominated much of Searles’ time the past several years, initially her dreams consisted of playing another sport in college.
“I played travel and school basketball. It was my favorite sport and I actually wanted to play in college, but then lacrosse just sort of clicked, and basketball was killing my ankles,” she said with a laugh. She started played lacrosse in fourth grade, and fully committed to the sport in tenth grade by ending her basketball career.
The Blue Streaks are doing their best to keep hope alive that they haven’t played their last game in a Blue Streaks uniform.
“We are all just trying to stay positive and are hoping to have, at least for a condensed season. We’re just cheering each other on and working out, hitting the wall, still keeping up our skills, so if we do come back that we’re ready to play games.”
Last season Searles compiled around a .600 save percentage, while allowing a average 8 goals against per game.
While the future at Saratoga is currently up in the air, she will always have fond memories of her time at a Blue Streak.
“It’s all been fun, but it’s also been hard work. I’d honestly just think about getting to play lacrosse with the group of young women that I have.”