Uncertainty bred opportunity for Katie Fenton this past winter. The 2015 Hanover High graduate and former Marauders hockey goaltender was halfway through her sophomore year at Colby College in Waterville, Maine, when the Mules’ interim head coach contacted her about joining the puck squad.
Seems Colby had two goaltenders but both were on the mend from offseason surgeries. College teams usually carry three netminders, but one of Colby’s had transferred to a different school after the previous season. The Mules’ previous coach was out on maternity leave during the summer and exited the program as the school year started, leading the college to plug former Dartmouth assistant Holley Tyng into the breach in early October.
With less than a month before practice started, Tyng had more pressing and immediate concerns than finding a third goalie. However, it became clear one was necessary as the season progressed. Tyng was playing pickup hockey back in the Upper Valley during the holiday break when a fellow competitor mentioned that a young lady who went to Colby might be up for joining the group. Tyng’s ears perked up, and she had soon convinced the diminutive Fenton to try out for the Mules when classes went back into session.
Fenton got herself somewhat ready by skating at Hanover practices and in an Upper Valley adult league during December, but her muscles barked during the first month of skating at Colby. Still, she didn’t feel out of her depth, and when one of her fellow netminders suffered a concussion in February, Fenton got a chance to play in parts of four games.
Colby finished 2-19-3 overall and 0-15-1 in NESCAC play. Its victories came during its last two games, and Fenton earned one of them. She played 80 minutes and posted a 3.74 goals-against average and stopped 25 of 30 shots. Not bad for a player who, despite being part of four consecutive NHIAA titles and boasting a .920 save percentage, wasn’t recruited at the college level.
“I chose Colby with no intention of playing,” said Fenton, whose father attended the 1,800-student school. “I didn’t miss hockey when I wasn’t around it a lot, but sometimes I would go to games at Colby and then I would miss it. And seeing Hanover play over Christmas break definitely made me miss it.
“I’m really glad I’m back, and I don’t think it’s unrealistic to earn playing time next season.”
Fenton, who also competed for Hanover’s softball team, said she hopes Tyng will land the Colby coach’s job permanently when an official search concludes this spring. The former Providence College captain was at Dartmouth from 2005-16 and departed when head coach Mark Hudak, now at Kimball Union Academy, stepped down a little more than a year ago. Tyng was also once the head girls coach at Tabor Academy in Massachusetts.
“I found out the Colby job was open when one of Mark’s players was interested in going there and discovered they had no coach,” Tyng said. “Our goalies did the best they could this year, but they were inexperienced.
“I didn’t initially have a lot of expectations for Katie. I just needed someone to take the pressure off the others in practice. But she’s a competitor and slowly but surely, despite her size, she showed competitiveness and agility that the other goalies didn’t have. She did well stepping into a situation that could have been pretty intimidating.”
Mike Landau, Fenton’s softball coach at Hanover, recalled her committing only five errors in 19 games as the Marauders’ starting shortstop her senior year. She had played elsewhere earlier in her diamond career.
“You’d look at her and think, ‘No way that kid has the arm for short or third’, but then she’d make all the plays,” Landau wrote in an email. “Maybe because she didn’t have any loud tools, people didn’t notice her as much. She wasn’t a power hitter or have a gun of an arm or blinding speed — she just did everything well.”
Tyng said Colby’s mix of academics and athletics reminds her of Dartmouth. She has six multi-sport athletes on her team and said that while Division I recruiting seemingly becomes more intense and targets younger and younger prospects every year, the Division III ranks are refreshingly mellow and allow her to pursue juniors and seniors in high school, not freshmen and sophomores.
“My intention is to be here for the long term, and I’m quite excited about our incoming class,” said Tyng, who recruited that group despite not knowing whether she will get to coach them. “There wasn’t a lot of structure or guidance in this program coming into this season, so everyone is going to benefit from having a plan before we get into the next one.”
Tris Wykes can be reached at twykes@vnews.com or 603-727-3227.