USA Field Hockey head coach Janneke Schopman didn't have time for a formal sit-down. She was late for a meeting and a flight. Amanda Magadan '17, former Lafayette field hockey standout, recalled how the meeting went that would change the course of her immediate future.

Even a year later, Matthew Cortese still feels the pain of unexpectedly losing one of his lifelong friends, Eddie Blatz Jr. The details, kept private by Blatz's family, aren't important. What matters is that Cortese, who had gone to school and played sports with Blatz since kindergarten, has spent the last year doing his best to honor the friend he admired, the friend who made him laugh, the friend whose life ended too soon.