Sarah Davidson is a tri-sport athlete at Waterford High School who has faced many challenges both physically and mentally due to these sports.
Davidson plays varsity basketball, runs varsity outdoor track, and plays varsity field hockey.
Sarah’s athletic journey started with soccer, when she joined the rec team in kindergarten. Sarah then started playing basketball in third grade, joining the rec team here in Waterford. She also joined the little league softball team around the same time. When she started freshman year, she quit soccer because she “didn’t want to follow in her sister’s footsteps.” She decided to join the field hockey team, where she made varsity. Sarah said that she decided to join to keep in shape, but then realized that she actually enjoyed it. Sarah joined outdoor track during her freshman year basketball season, which was because Blackburn recruited her because he knew about her athletic history and wanted her to join track.
Playing these sports have come with unforgettable memories, new friendships, accomplishments, and even injuries.
Her most recent sports-related injury happened on September 26th, when she sprained her ankle because a girl on the Killingly varsity field hockey team fell on her during a game. She quickly recovered in a week, playing her next game on October 5th in Clinton.
Sarah says her worst injury was when she fractured her jaw in October of 2022. “We were playing NFA, five minutes into the first quarter and I got smashed on the right side of my face with the ball.” After she got hit, she didn’t feel it, but the senior captain Sam San Juan told Sarah to get on her knees because she was bleeding: “my teeth set sent to a different dimension.”
Even after all these injuries and challenges, she still loves these sports wholeheartedly, and she knows these accidents have shaped her “These injuries have definitely made me tougher,” Sarah quit basketball this year because it was a bad environment and her mental health was “going
down the drain.” This was a hard choice for her.
The most important thing to Sarah is her mental health, and that’s why in the end she decided to drop basketball. The sports she plays now all boost her mental health up, make her feel welcomed, and let her have a good time when she’s on the field.
One of the hardest parts about leaving the team was telling her childhood best friend and sports partner Lucy Walker that she was leaving the team. She was worried about how she would feel about her not playing anymore. “She’s my childhood best friend, I can’t remember a time I wasn’t playing without her” Sarah says.
Sarah’s personal favorite sport is track. She feels like the environment is welcoming and enjoyable. There’s much less room for stress in this sport than the other ones, so she enjoys track a lot. “I’m good at it and there’s not a lot of stress involved in that sport. The environment is welcoming and nice” Sarah says.
Every setback Sarah has had only pushed her forward and gave her more strength into the sports she loves and plays. Each recovery came alongside determination and more love for the sport. It even gives her fun stories to tell her friends.
