Looking to build off an Elite 8 berth from last winter, it didn’t take coach Brooke Fernandez long to see what she had in her latest Deerfield girls hockey team.
“From the beginning of the year, I knew that we had a really strong core of returners and all our new kids were really impactful,” Fernandez said. “We just came off a season where we had gone to the playoffs, so we know how hard it is to get there. … Now, you have a road-challenged team, and they were ready to go.”
A plethora of experience and stellar goaltending from senior Campbell Krotee (Darien, Conn.) down the stretch carried second-seeded Deerfield to the finish line of the NEPSAC Large School bracket. With a 2-0 shutout win over Tabor on March 9, the Big Green captured its first New England crown since 2001.
There were certainly teams out there that scored more goals or rostered more than Deerfield’s four college commits, but Fernandez saw a team that came together and played its best hockey when the games mattered most.
The Big Green went 15-3-1 during the 2025 portion of the schedule and won six of its final seven games.
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“We’ve always said that it’s about everybody in the room, and you have to be pushing in the same direction,” Fernandez said. “I think we found success through keeping it simple, just grinding and playing really well versus trying to rely on individual talent. I think the last two weeks proved to me that, you know, flip a coin against a great team, but that works, and playing together is what it takes.”
While the title-winning Big Green included just four seniors, a nine-member junior class was instrumental in the team’s success. The latter group included double-digit goal scorers in defender Chloe Cleaves (Riverside, Conn.) and forward Sophie Frost, who combined for 27 tallies. Cleaves assisted senior Allie Corrieri’s (Devens, Mass.) game-winning goal and added an empty-net goal in the championship.
Given the make-up of the roster and the change to a system that Krotee described as a “fluid game” that focused less on traditional positional hockey of three forwards and two defenders and more of a five-player unit, Fernandez knew that having a team-first mentality was necessary.
“I think that’s hard to do — especially when you’re getting older and you’re kind of expecting things to go a certain way — to always be thinking of the team first,” Fernandez said. “But they were phenomenal.”
Krotee, though, was the key to it all. The Holy Cross commit saved her best for last, pitching a 27-save shutout in the championship game.
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Aside from stopping pucks, she earned the rare honor of serving as a team co-captain as a goaltender, alongside Corrieri. Helping to set the team-first mentality that rang true all season led to success.
“All the girls on our team are incredibly passionate about not only the sport but our program,” Krotee said. “Deerfield hockey doesn’t just mean who we play for, but it means the character we play with. … The girls were not only focused on winning the whole thing but about being good teammates. We’d rather win together than win apart.”
The coach knows there would have been no ultimate victory without Krotee, who stopped Tabor on several breakaway tries and backstopped a stellar team-wide defensive effort in the third period.
“There’s no way we won that game without her in the net,” Fernandez said. “She was tracking every puck she got, every rebound. She just shut it down. She was steady and kind of the calming energy for our team.”
Krotee is slated to take a postgraduate year at Williston Northampton next year before vaulting her career to the Hockey East level. Before making her first move, she wanted to go out on top.
As the team’s last line of defense and an important leader, helping to guide the team steadily through the biggest moments was crucial.
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“I was so grateful that I was in that position in the playoffs, especially in my senior year, that it really pushed me to not get caught up in the result and just focus on the process,” Krotee said. “I would say I’m pretty calm and collected. Playoff hockey can be emotional and the girls in front of me can get emotional, so I like to act as sort of an anchor to them.”
Through ups and downs, she wouldn’t have had it any other way.
“Just being a part of a program where everybody cares so much about each other, the sport, the program, it’s just made me a better person, a better leader and a better advocate of the name that’s on the front of my jersey,” Krotee said. “Playing at Deerfield, it was the greatest three years I’ve had.”
