TOPSHAM — Haley Tuplin’s game-winning goal for Lisbon in the Class C South regional semifinals against St. Dominic on Saturday was a culmination of a lot of hard work to get back on the field after painful injury.

Tuplin’s left hip kept bothering her during the 2020 field hockey season. She decided to get it checked out, and doctors diagnosed her with a type III Salter-Harris fracture in the hip, which is when the force of a rounded part of a bone hits the growth plate. The fracture may involve cartilage and enter into the joint.

“I’d always had this pain, but it got to the point where I was in tears after games, so I had to go and get it checked out,” Tuplin, a junior, said. “I had to go get an MRI, it. It was a long process to get a diagnosis, but (the doctors) pinpointed it down to that.”

Tuplin spent the second half of the 2020 season and the first two months of 2021 going to rehab three days a week at Game Plan Physical Therapy in Topsham, and she had to relearn how to run.

“Basically, I was out of alignment and post-injury, after I was out for three months maybe, I had to learn how to run properly,” Tuplin said. “I had to get strong again. I was very weak and I lost a lot of my skills that I had to relearn and pick up (again). I was in the gym doing strength training, just trying to get strong again.”

Tuplin said the process of relearning to run included critiquing the mechanics to regain her running form.

She returned to field hockey around February and March, practicing with her club team, the U16 Maine Styx, one day a week.

“When I was cleared to play, it still took a lot to get used to,” Tuplin said. “I think, four or five months, (my hip) felt normal again and I have been good ever since.”

KEY CONTRIBUTOR

Tuplin has been an all-around player for the Greyhounds since her freshman season in 2019.

“She has played a lot of positions. She’s a scorer for us, we have had her on the fly and we had her (on defense), she plays (midfielder),” Lisbon coach Julie Petrie said. “She’s a great kid, she’s coachable, she knows she needs to score, but she’s not selfish. She’s OK distributing the ball, and I think the NYA game (in the quarterfinals) was a great display of that. I think she had two or three assists. She just wants to do what it takes to win.”

The 6-1 win over NYA in the regional quarterfinal last Thursday was the most goals Lisbon has scored this season. The No. 6 Greyhounds will take on No. 1 Winthrop for the Class C South regional title Wednesday at 7 p.m. in Freeport.

Tuplin said she relies on her teammates for her success. Petrie said Tuplin leads by example.

“She gets us going, obviously; we feed off scoring,” Petrie said. “She’s not a loud kid, and I think when we are all playing well, she’s very laser-focused. Like I said, she’s not a kid of very many words, but you can see that focus in her eyes.”

Tuplin was a soccer player until the eighth grade, when friends convinced her to try field hockey. Her confidence grew her freshman season when Petrie trusted her and gave her meaningful playing time.

“She pushed me to be the best player that I could be, and she still does that to this day,” Tuplin said. “Without it, I don’t think I would be the player that I am.”

 

Tuplin, who started at midfield as a freshman, added that Petrie had high standards for her, and Tuplin said that she thrives off those standards.

“Freshman year, she was an impact player, too,” Petrie said. “It seems like forever ago, but she was a playmaker for us then, too. She has come into her own (this year), and it’s nice to hit strides and have an idea where (kids) play their best field hockey.”

REFINING HER SKILLS

Tuplin has 10 goals and 13 assists in her career.

After the high school season ends this week, Tuplin will rejoin her Styx teammates for a national tournament, the Shooting Star Regional Cup Championship, in Pennsylvania on Nov. 20-21 .

Tuplin said that she learns a lot from playing at a high level, and she then brings that knowledge to Lisbon.

“I play with some amazing, (very) skilled girls,” Tuplin said. “So, I try to take those skills from travel (field hockey), training in the offseason, and bringing those skills to here.”

She also worked on her shooting in the summer of 2020 at home by building her own field hockey goal.

“It came about in quarantine (in the summer of 2020), where I couldn’t practice with any of my teams, everything was kind of shut down,” Tuplin said. “I didn’t have turf (to play on) at home, I didn’t have expensive (field hockey) goals, they can be a little pricey. My mom and (I) worked on it. We made it out of plywood and wood. We got all the measurements, it was a process, but it was a pretty nice field hockey goal to practice at home.”

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