After four years playing field hockey at Lock Haven University, Amy Stevens transferred to Russell Sage College as a graduate for the 2023 season. Though playing for the Gators only for one year, everyone in and out of the program can agree that Stevens made an outsized impact on the Russell Sage field hockey team.

On the field, Stevens earned second-team All-American honors from the NFHCA, becoming the first All-American in program history. Stevens, a first-team NFCHA All-Region selection, was also voted the Empire 8 Conference Player of the Year after leading the conference with 49 points and 20 goals, both of which are school single-season records.

“Quite honestly, Amy had the single greatest season any athlete has had in the history of Russell Sage Athletics, bar none,” said Russell Sage athletic director James Lyons.

Stevens credits the spectacular season to both hard work and the support she received from her team.

“I felt confident with the years of experience under my belt,” she said. “But I was surrounded by a team of hard-working, friendly girls. They treated me with warmth and enthusiasm that motivated me to work even harder.”

Amy brought a “know how to” approach to our team, which quickly rubbed off on the entire team’s daily habits,” Russell Sage head coach Nick Pontari said. “Amy would be the first one to practice not only putting extra shots on cage but bringing others along with her; working on dribbling, passing, and shooting with her teammate on the side before practice even began.”

Although she was technically a newcomer in the program, Stevens was seen as a leader on the team almost instantly since she was so experienced. Her experience was valued by her teammates and coaches so much that Stevens stayed around the program as a volunteer coach in the spring of 2024.

“As a transfer in, she was the first person here helping welcome the new students on move-in day,” Pontari said. “For six hours, she helped first-year students carry their belongings into their residence hall buildings and made sure they had a friendly welcome upon arriving to campus.”

“Amy’s work ethic is one of the greatest I have ever seen,” Lyons said. “That work ethic allowed her instant credibility with her coaches and teammates as she got to know everyone early in the year.”

During all her success on the field hockey pitch, Stevens was in school pursuing her doctorate in physical therapy. It wouldn’t be easy, but Stevens said she got support from both her coach and teammates.

“At first, it was incredibly daunting,” she said. “My coach reached out and really put me at ease, especially after talking with multiple girls on the team who were also in the same program.”

“Amy has maintained ‘A’ student status during her time in Albany,” Lyons added. “She was a tremendous role model for her teammates when it came to juggling her academic endeavors with her pursuit of greatness on the field.”

Stevens’ love of field hockey began in fifth grade. She was a soccer player at the time but said field hockey was very popular in her area and a lot of her friends played. While attending Whitney Point High School, Stevens earned All-State honors and helped the program win five-straight field hockey titles. But high school was formative for Stevens in more than just field hockey. During her sophomore year, she tore her ACL while playing lacrosse. During the six months of physical therapy, Stevens realized her passion for the field of physical therapy.

“I immediately knew that’s what I wanted to do,” she said. “I know that it’s everything for athletes to get back to their sport and I have so much enthusiasm to help them.”

That enthusiasm was highly valued on the field hockey pitch and, according to her head coach, will be valuable wherever she goes in the future.

“There is no doubt in my mind that Amy will continue to and go on to do amazing things as a person in her time here at Russell Sage and beyond,” said Pontari.

“I am beyond the words of being thankful and honored to receive this award,” Stevens said. “When reflecting on the incredible accolades of each of the present and past honorees, it has truly been put into perspective how blessed I am to have been named among these decorated and accomplished women.”

Talia Spenziero knows what it means to work hard. She certainly worked hard during her career at Siena College during which she was a five-time All-MAAC diver. But behind the scenes, Spenziero’s unique work ethic and leadership helped her find success all over North America.

Spenziero chose Siena because she wanted to stay close to home. After six years of diving for Shenendehowa High School, she decided to compete at Siena to stay near her family in Clifton Park. But at the time, the Saints had just one diver on the team, who had only joined the team the year prior, and no diving coach.

“We would coach each other by taking videos,” Spenziero said. “It brought out the strengths in both of us.”

“Despite the challenges of not having a diving coach on staff, the two girls were positive, hard-working, and extremely successful,” said former Siena Swimming and Diving Head Coach Brogan Barr.

Spenziero’s success included capturing the MAAC Championship in the one-meter diving event, becoming the program’s first individual champion since 2011, and she was named Co-Diver of the meet on her way to being just the fourth diver to represent Siena at the NCAA Diving Zone Regionals.

“She also dedicated herself to getting stronger in the weight room and to executing her dives to the best of her abilities,” Barr said.

The hard work began in middle school for Spenziero. Just like her mom, she was a gymnast early on before moving to the diving board in middle school. She started competing on her high school’s varsity diving team in seventh grade.

“I practiced day in and day out,” she said. “I’d end school at 2:30, have varsity practice until 5:30, and then go to practice with my club team from 6-8 a couple days a week.”

That schedule only filled up more when she reached college. While Spenziero admits she struggled at first, she found a way to work harder and find success in the classroom.

“I didn’t have many study habits in high school,” she said, “That doesn’t work in college. But I started working really hard and I got at least a 3.8 every semester.”

Spenziero had to bring her best effort to balance a courseload that included difficult health sciences classes. Even with a hard major, Spenziero still graduated Magna Cum Laude this past spring.

“Throughout her time at Siena, Talia continuously challenged herself with some of Siena’s toughest science courses, as she wanted to prepare herself for the rigors of a physician assistant master’s program,” Barr said. “She handled the nuances of her academic, athletic, and work schedules seemingly flawlessly.”

The summer before her senior year, Spenziero traveled to Oaxaca, Mexico as a Global Medical Volunteer. She visited the local clinics there for five hours, five days a week. She was able to help lower income residents in the city get much needed health care.

“It was one of the greatest experiences I’ve ever done,” she said. “I got to work hand-in-hand with doctors down there to address the disparities in their healthcare system.”

Whether she’s high atop the pool looking down at a diving board or bending down to help a patient in need, Talia Spenziero’s hard work is always on display to those around her.

“Receiving this award validates the countless hours of training and hard work I’ve put into not only my sport but my academics and extracurricular activities,” she said. “It makes me grateful for all the challenges I’ve overcome over the years. It also inspires me to continue pushing myself to be the best that I can be in my future endeavors.”

Ayaka Suesada’s school encourages everyone to explore their creative side, and although she called herself “not the best artist necessarily,” a school administrator credited Suesada for her “beautiful works of art in drawing, painting, sculpture, weaving, wood, iron and stone.”

When it came to Suesada’s senior season playing basketball for the Hawthorne Valley Waldorf School, she needed to tap into that creative side like never before.

Her graduating class totaled all of 11 students, so perhaps it was no surprise when numbers came up light to field a girls’ varsity team.

Not to be deterred, Suesada hatched the idea of playing on the boys’ team, and the result was a rewarding season that capped a career in which she played varsity basketball since seventh grade, while thriving academically, embracing the unique culture at Hawthorne Valley and helping her parents, who are caregivers at Triform Camphill Community, look after residents with special needs there.

With all that on her plate, missing basketball senior year would’ve left a gaping hole in Suesada’s high school career, but the so-called “gym rat, first to arrive and last to leave,” as Wildcats boys’ coach Jason Middlebrook described her, was able to find a way to fill it in an unusual way.

“When I was a senior, I guess a lot of girls weren’t interested in basketball, and I still wanted to play, so I was talking to the coaches and kind of joking around, ‘Oh, maybe I could be on the boys’ team, that could be fun,’” Suesada said. “My coach was like, ‘No, yeah, let’s make it happen.’ I’m really thankful that I was able to play, and it was really fun, probably one of my favorite seasons.”

That, despite the fact that Hawthorne Valley, one of the smallest schools in the entire New York State Public High School Athletic Association, did not fare well on the scoreboard while playing in the Central Hudson Valley League. Still, Suesada said that by the end of the season, the Wildcats had improved substantially, to the point where teams that had beaten them by large margins earlier in the season found themselves in very tight games the second time around.

Middlebrook credited Suesada, who was a captain on the team while playing point guard, for setting an excellent example for teammates to follow.

“Ayaka was fearless throughout her senior year, competing with and against young men and never backing down,” he said of Suesada, one of 10 high school honorees for the third-annual Capital District Sports Women of the Year awards. “She was a vocal leader on and off the court throughout her school career – but especially this year.

“After every practice this past season, Ayaka went to the weight room, while the boys on the team went home.”

“At our school, everyone is super-accepting and welcoming, so they were very down with me being one of the captains,” Suesada said. “And it was really fun, also, being a senior. You have a little more confidence, so you don’t feel as shy to say, ‘Hey, stop doing that’ or ‘Come over here so we can stretch.’

“I usually don’t think of myself as competitive, but then when I start playing games, I’m a little bit competitive, and I don’t like losing. So I try my best, and I think everyone tries their best and puts everything on the court. We fight hard, and it’s really fun.”

Suesada carried a 4.0 GPA in the classroom and plans to study sports management at Syracuse University.
Besides basketball, she has competed in cross country, club soccer and varsity volleyball, for which she earned all-CHVL honors despite the fact that this was her only season playing the sport.

Besides having been exposed to the Waldorf School philosophy at Hawthorne Valley, where students are taught and encouraged to adopt principles of diversity, equity and inclusion, Suesada enjoys helping her parents at Triform Camphill.

“For me, most of my involvement is during the summer, when they need more help and I’m off school,” she said. “I’ll help in different work areas, often the bakery, because I enjoy that area. I do a lot of childcare for the other families.

“During the year there are events where I help out. I love the community. It’s very tight-knit. Everyone is so welcoming and friendly, and you meet new people all the time. I feel a lot of fulfillment in many ways, and I’m so happy here.”

At Hawthorne Valley, Suesada has served as a mentor to younger kids in athletics, academics and social justice issues.

“I tell them to enjoy the present,” she said. “Be in the moment, because I think nowadays kids are very accelerated in their development in a lot of ways, and I think it’s important for them to live in the moment and enjoy being young and having this freedom to do anything when you’re young, and have fun with it.”

Middleburgh’s Cameryn Shultes doesn’t get caught up in the many honors she has earned. She’d rather talk about the little moments, such as all the practices and time spent with her teammates. And she’s glad she got to do it in a town that cares as much about its kids as Middleburgh.

The three-sport athlete is, in the words of Middleburgh athletic director Gregg Johns, “loyal, reliable and hard-working.” She has excelled in the classroom, in athletics and perhaps most noticeably, in community service. Shultes has done most of her service with St. Peter’s Hospital.

“I participated in a program through school this year with St. Peter’s [New Visions Health Careers], where instead of just straight education, everything is tied into health services, so I got to follow the doctors on rounds, see different aspects of the healthcare industry, and it also ties in to giving back to the community,” said Shultes, who is one of 10 high school honorees for the third-annual Capital District Sports Women of the Year awards.

In addition, Shultes has volunteered at St. Peter’s Hospital making Christmas/holiday gift baskets for all the staff. She also volunteered at Becky’s House cleaning the house and yard. (Becky’s House is a house affiliated with St. Peter’s to provide housing for families with relatives or children in the hospital for extended periods of time.) She also will be volunteering at the St. Peter’s Cancer Care Center in the upcoming few weeks.

“She has the drive and desire to do her very best, while always finding time and willingness to help others succeed,” Johns said.

Athletically, Shultes has been bowling for the longest, since the 2016-17 season. She was a Section II first-team all-star from 2017-22, a Western Athletic Conference first-team all-star from 2017-22, the team’s most improved player in 2019, the WAC MVP in 2022 and had the league’s high average in 2022. According to her coach and father, Richard Shultes, she had a high series of 754 this past season, which was the highest for boys and girls in the WAC.

“Cameryn led the team to a fourth consecutive sectional win,” Richard said, “and a second trip to small-school states, where they placed second statewide. Cameryn and the [Middleburgh] team has not lost a match in the WAC for the last four years.”
In soccer, as a goalie, she was the team co-defensive MVP in 2020, won the Coach’s Choice Award in 2021, was a Section II first-team all-star in 2020 and 2022 and was the WAC Mohawk Division Defensive MVP in 2022.

In softball, in which she is the catcher, she won the Coach’s Choice Award in 2021.

Academically, Cameryn Shultes was a NYSPHSAA Scholar-Athlete in bowling from 2016-22, in soccer from 2018-22 and in softball in 2019, 2021 and 2022. She is the salutatorian and will attend SUNY Geneseo, where she plans to major in biology on the pre-med track.

Looking back, Shultes said she had to learn how to develop as a leader.

“I always wanted to be a leader, but obviously when you’re young, you’re not built for that yet,” she said. “I certainly think as I got older, I did learn to become a leader for the younger girls, especially in soccer. Your goalies aren’t usually going to be your captains because they’re not involved in every bit of the up-and-down that other players are, but I learned how my voice could be heard as a goalie and a leader for others. I worked very hard.”

When discussing athletic memories, Shultes doesn’t mention the headlines, but rather the day-to-day moments. Those are what sports are all about for her.
“Just the excitement of playing, the release of being able to play and to put all your energy into something,” she said. “Plus, one thing about sports is all the emotions that come out of them. Another thing I enjoy is the team aspect. I’ve made lifelong friends through them. And just the excitement of doing something all the way through.”

Give her hours of practice and time spent with friends any day of the week. And by all means, let it be in Middleburgh.

“Thankfully our school is very community-oriented because it’s not very big, and being able to compete in front of a lot of the community members and having it be a big deal in our town is nice,” Shultes said. “Not all schools can be that way because they’re so big.”

“She is the epitome of what, as a coach, we look for in a student-athlete,” Johns said. “She is well-rounded in academics, athletics and school activities. Cameryn is a great teammate, a great leader and just a solid and respectful young woman.”