Chandler Solimine, a 2015 PMHS graduate, was one of seven women nominated to represent the New England Small College Athletic Conference as one of its nominees for NCAA Woman of the Year. The award is given to graduating student-athletes who demonstrate success through leadership, academic achievement, service and excellence in athletics. Now a graduate of Trinity College, Solimine was nominated for her performance in field hockey. 

Solimine’s willingness to strive for greatness both on and off the field was obvious from the beginning of her time at Trinity. Solimine was a senator for the Class of 2019 in the Trinity Student Government as well as a student representative on the Bantams in Balance Committee, which helped promote healthy lifestyles to the campus community. She also served as a first-year seminar mentor, a Big Brothers Big Sisters mentor and helped organize charity events for the National Multiple Sclerosis Foundation with the field hockey team.

“I was passionate about everything I did or every group I was a part of, so I made sure to never just aimlessly go through the motions,” she said. “I have a wide variety of interests, so I think being proactive in making sure I pursued those interests, from field hockey to student government to being a writer for our athletics website, allowed me to excel in a lot of different areas of Trinity’s community.”

Solimine’s 14 game-winning career goals rank her second among Trinity’s all-time leaders, while her 45 career goals placed her in the top five. She started 61 of 72 games and recorded 117 points (45 goals, 27 assists). She was also awarded the 2018 NESCAC Offensive Player of the Year honor.

Solimine said that working hard and having fun while doing is vital.

“I can’t even put into words how much I loved my experience as an athlete at Trinity, and candidly I am very jealous of anyone who has four years of college athletics ahead of them,” she said. “I think coming in as freshmen on a team, it’s hard not to feel intimidated or have a sort of ‘I’m not good enough’ feeling, but you have to remember that you put in all the necessary work to end up where you are supposed to be, and your coach recruited you believing that you had something special that could help their team. It’s important to have this sort of humble confidence right off the bat, and I wish I had a little more of that when I was a freshman.”

As an upperclass leader, Solimine worked hard to motivate her younger and less experienced teammates. “A main goal of mine was to get the younger girls to really buy in to our program and get them to care as much about our team’s success as I did,” she said. “I really aimed to make my attitude, effort and heart for our team to be contagious enough to get everyone on the same page.”

Chandler graduated with a 3.77 GPA and was a five-time NESCAC All-Academic honoree for both field hockey and ice hockey. She played ice hockey for two years at Trinity, before choosing to focus all of her athletic efforts towards field hockey. She was a three-time NFHCA National Academic Squad selection and earned faculty honors six semesters. In 2018, she was awarded the Rosamond M. Mancall Prize, which is presented to an outstanding member of the junior class who is an American studies major.

As Chandler moves on to the next steps in life, she will always remember the strong impact Trinity College made on her. She is moving to Boston to work as a business analyst for a startup called Burst, which was founded by a Trinity alumnus.

“With my college athletic career having come to a close, I’m also now putting a lot of focus on finding other ways to stay active in a competitive way, whether that be picking up a new sport or signing up to run a race, so that will be my goal for the next few months,” said Solimine.