Mercury All-Area: Katelyn Dulin doubles her scoring output, her player of the year honors and leads Boyertown to first PAC title in 20 years

The Boyertown field hockey team has come a long way the last two seasons. Though there are many reasons for the turnaround from a sub-.500 team to a playoff contender and then to Pioneer Athletic Conference champions, the emergence of Katelyn Dulin as an All-State player cannot be overestimated.

This season the Bear senior more than doubled her goal output from her junior year – despite being consistently double- or triple-teamed – with many of those scores coming in key games and situations. But just as importantly, her leadership in games and practices was a major factor in the development of a new hard-working and winning culture for the program.

And for those reasons, Dulin has been named the Mercury All-Area Field Hockey Player of the Year for the second straight season.

Dulin’s long-time dream coming into her junior year was to make it to the PAC playoffs, which she had attended as a fan many times over the years. She and the Bears accomplished that in 2021, marking the team’s first playoff appearance since 2008.

This season, Boyertown (17-4-1) went one step further, making a return trip to the Final Four and the championship game and winning the title with a 3-2 decision over Spring-Ford. Dulin scored twice in the second quarter to give the Bears a 3-0 lead and they hung on to record the team’s first championship in 20 years.

“We were on the porch knocking on the door and the door opened,” said Dulin,who was named to the PAC and All-State first teams. “We had every girl show up. You could tell they were better and pushed each other. Everyone wanted to play field hockey as long as possible. We wanted to make it happen. We had a lot of young girls playing under the bright lights.”

Dulin scored 23 goals (up from 11 the previous year) to go with 10 assists and led the team in corners drawn with 54, all while drawing a lot of attention from opposing defense.

‘”Every PAC game and non-league game, it was kind of obvious five minutes into the game there’s going to be three girls on me,” she said. “It definitely gets the other girls open.”

And besides leading the way during matches, Dulin was also a leader at practices.

“Katelyn is super-focused and serious and very, very driven and determined,” said Boyertown coach Alicia Terrizzi. “Every practice she is doing 100 percent and her expectations are that everyone is doing it 100 percent. She wants to play hockey all the time and it shows. She was our absolute leader on the field. Every person on our team wants to win and do everything necessary to win. A lot of our underclassmen have learned that our culture has changed the last 18 months.”

“My skills have gotten better and the aggressiveness I bring to the game,” said Dulin. “Learning how to be a leader on the team as I get older. I’m not loud, but field hockey brings out a different personality and love for the game.”

The season was not the easiest for the Bears, who suffered a disappointing loss to Methacton early in the season and were involved in many close matches. And since Boyertown has only grass fields, the team held fundraisers to rent a turf field for practice and elected to play all but two of its matches on the road.

But all of that and a 2-0 win over previously undefeated Methacton in the final regular season contest prepared the Bears for the playoffs.

“That definitely did help,” said Dulin,who scored the first goal in the rematch against Methacton. “Going into the first game against Methacton, we were really confident and it didn’t go our way. Almost all of our games were close. Our defense was super good and our goalie (Sarah Yoder) kept us in a lot of games. In the PAC semifinals and championship we knew what we had to do and came out even harder.”

The play of sophomore Peyton Shellaway on penalty corners was also a big boost to Dulin and the Boyertown offense.

“Peyton’s inserts really changed things,” said Terrizzi. “They gave Katelyn more time at the top of the circle.”

But Dulin was also able to make plays on her own. In the key second regular season game against Spring-Ford, she took the ball from the backfield and wove through the defense all the way into the circle and scored for a 3-2 lead on the way to a 5-2 win.

She began learning field hockey skills at the age of six in the Upper Perkiomen program, since Boyertown did not have that young a group.

“I also played softball, but I was a little better at field hockey,” she said. “I wouldn’t change that decision. I think about field hockey 24/7. After losing seasons my freshman and sophomore years, we were able to get the program a little more respect and we were expecting to win every time. And the coaching staff put in their blood, sweat and tears.”

Dulin will continue her education and field hockey career at Michigan State.

“The coaches and the team there are like a family,” she said. “It’s another great coaching staff and the Big Ten is an extreme challenge. When I grew up, I saw girls play field hockey and it was really cool to see how they played and what they could do. I wanted to do that and now I get to play Division I field hockey and that’s really cool. I’m looking forward to coming back someday and seeing my little sister play.”