By Joe Scheffler
Triangle contributing writer
In the fall of 2021-2022, the 2025 graduating class of Wingate University’s field hockey team made history as they took the field for the first time. After years of planning, Wingate finally fielded its own varsity field hockey team for the first time in school history.
“It felt like being the first class to move into a brand new building,” said team leader Lauren Montgomery, a senior from Williamsville, N.Y., who has played in 67 games during in her Wingate career and has 13 goals and eight assists to her credit.
The coach hired to lead this team was Kat Lind, who had started a program from scratch in 2018 at Coker that won the South Atlantic Conference championship three years later.Once more, Lind faced the difficult task of not just coaching new girls but establishing a culture within the new program. Lind had to start from ground zero by creating new playbooks, locker-room traditions and even fundraising for new equipment.
Seniors recall that the Bulldogs’ first practices weren’t all sunshine and rainbows. The gear was all new and they had zero chemistry. They were sharing a field with two lacrosse teams and practicing while the track team was going through its drills as well, but they didn’t care. They were just happy to be playing the sport they loved.
”We were all scared a little bit but also proud of how far we’ve come and what we’re about to do,” said Emma George, a a senior from Mountain Top, Pa., who has played 57 for Wingate and scored 11 goals. “There’s a different kind of vibe when you’re the first team. If you play good and succeed, you open the door for players who come after you and give them the chance to make the program even better. But if you fail, it’s harder to convince people to commit to win for field hockey because how do they know if we are the real deal?”
That mindset of having grit and proving themselves powered the Bulldogs through their first matches. They were no veteran players within the program to lead them, but they knew they had each other—and that’s all that mattered.
Their first-ever home game ironically came against Lind’s old team, Coker. The game drew almost 200 curious onlookers to a newly renovated Graham Gill Field. Audrey Proulx was the first-ever athlete to score for the Wingate field hockey team. Unfortunately, the Bulldogs lost a close battle to the Cobras, 4-3, but they knew they were on a competitive track.
It was difficult to create a program from scratch behind the scenes. Convincing players to take a chance on something that didn’t exist two or three years ago was necessary to assemble a full roster. Lind focused on high school athletes who participated in multiple sports, club players who were eager for a chance and transfers who were looking for an opportunity to contribute to the development of a new culture.
“We learned to be scrappy that first year in every part of our game,” Montgomery recalled. ”Sometimes we had to practice in different places or rescheduled games, but it didn’t seem to bother us. We just had to find a way.”
The players on “Team 1” made huge strides over their time at Wingate. They ended that first season with a 2-15 record, made incremental progress in 2023 with a 4-13 mark and then turned things around in a big way last season with a resounding 13-6 overall mark and third-place finish in the SAC.
The pioneering players on that first team now believe the sky is the limit for the program.
Wingate finished the 2025 regular season 10-6 overall with a fourth-place record of 6-4 in the SAC. The Bulldogs won their first-round SAC Tournament game against Converse, 1-0, and will now play at top-seeded Newberry on Friday (Nov. 7) in the semifinals. Newberry is undefeated at 16-0 and ranked second in the country. It’s a tall order for the Bulldogs, but again, the Wingate players believe there are no limits on what this program can accomplish.
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