No soft weeks: Groton, Middlesex, and Walker's on a brutal prep slate

From a Middlesex rebound to a Class B climb at Walker's to a Groton group still finding its voice, the early prep read is the same — depth everywhere, soft weeks nowhere.

Mass Pitch Staff · 2026-09-14

September on the prep map does not hand out mercy dates.

In the Independent School League and across the Founders League, the first measuring sticks arrive before the roster even feels settled. Tuesdays stack on Saturdays. The talent sits on both touchlines. And from three different rooms this month — Groton, Middlesex, Ethel Walker — the same sentence keeps landing.

There are no easy matches.

That is not a slogan. It is the operating condition. What makes these three rooms worth reading together is not that they said it. It is that they are walking into the same meat grinder from three different places on the map.

Middlesex is building a rebound after a rebuilding year. Walker’s is trying to prove last year’s Class B jump was not a one-year spike. Groton is trying to build a standard that will still hold when the ISL week gets loud. Same weather. Different jobs.

The shared problem: depth

Ask Groton’s Ryan Spring about the ISL and he does not circle one Friday night. He circles the whole league.

“The league is brutally tough. There are no easy matches.”

There is, he said, “an incredible amount of talent in the ISL.” The depth does not live in one pocket of the standings. It lives everywhere.

Across Founders, Walker’s walks into the same condition. No soft week to get healthy, get organized, or get confident — the calendar does not offer one. Two leagues. One September fact.

Middlesex: from a rebuilding year to a hunger year

Middlesex is the clearest “before and after” on this list — and the before is not subtle.

In 2025 the Zebras finished 1-12-5 overall and 0-9-3 in the ISL. That is not a bad break. That was a rebuilding year that never found rhythm. Andjus did not hide why.

Last year, she said, Middlesex was “plagued with many injuries from the very start,” and it was tough to catch a flow. The injuries left them “a little defeated at times.” The record matches the memory.

This fall is a different movie. Relatively healthy. Talented newcomers next to healthy veterans. A tone that is not cautious — genuine excitement about competing together after a year that did not end where they wanted.

If last season was about surviving the next absence, this one is about whether the standard holds for eighty minutes when the game turns.

Senior captain Sophie Getchell is the glue. Versatile enough to “literally play any position and often does.” A workhorse with a high soccer IQ — athleticism and game knowledge that let her play anywhere, adjust mid-game, and do anything for her team. Andjus said she is also committed to Bates — the line college coaches and Middlesex families both want on the record in September. (Getchell earned NEPSAC honorable mention a year ago even as the results went the other way — the kind of individual light that outlasts a hard team season.)

Goalkeeper Thea Salem had a strong first scrimmage and showed real confidence in goal — not afraid to attack the ball, a strong communicator who organizes the backline and keeps the energy up. Fearless on the ball. Organized behind it.

Charlotte Bjercke, a sophomore newcomer from Winchester, is already playing like the jump up fits her: aggressive, strong, fearless in the air and in the tackle. A center back / defensive midfielder who should matter on corners and free kicks.

Up the field, Andjus wants eyes on the partnership between Mara Johnson and Mackenzie Tierney. Mackenzie, a reclass freshman, brings pace and work rate. Mara, a freshman attacking center mid, is dynamic on the ball, wins challenges, and drives forward. The useful detail is the chemistry: Mara sees the field, breaks lines, and finds Mackenzie’s speed. That is not two highlight reels. That is a pairing Andjus expects to be a strength.

And the early measuring stick? Lawrence Academy.

“They were really strong last year and only added more new talent,” Andjus said. “They will be tough to beat.”

She flagged Tyler Martens as tough to mark: strong, versatile, with a knack for scoring. Andjus also named Laura Austen and a supporting cast — Jade, Nami, Yasmine — and described Martens and Austen as Groton-to-Lawrence Academy moves. Then she made the more important point. LA is not a one-name problem. “They are a very deep team.”

What the 2025 boards show: Martens was All-ISL and All-NEPSAC for Groton; Austen was All-ISL for Groton; Jade Jones and Yasmine Diaz took All-NEPSAC ink for Lawrence Academy. Groton coach Ryan Spring confirmed Martens is now at Lawrence Academy. Austen’s move remains Andjus’s identification.

What Middlesex is working on that will not show up cleanly next to a scoreline: mental toughness and consistency. Compete and communicate for the whole game — “especially during those moments when things aren’t going our way.” After 1-12-5, that sentence is not coach-speak. It is the whole assignment.

Walker’s: Class B year two — prove the climb

If Middlesex is building a rebound, Walker’s is trying not to slip after a leap.

In 2025, Walker’s jumped to NEPSAC Class B, captured the WWNEPSSA Class B title, earned the No. 2 seed in the NEPSAC Class B tournament, and finished 12-6 — one of the strongest campaigns in program history — before a quarterfinal exit to Brooks. That is an ascending program walking into year two of a harder weight class.

Year two is when the classification stops being a surprise and the slate stays cruel — starting immediately. Walker’s opens against last year’s Class B No. 1 Dexter Southfield and Class A No. 1 Loomis Chaffee, early-season measuring sticks that do not wait for October.

The returning group has the ink to match the ask. Gisselle Peña ’26, All-NEPSAC again, remains the offensive engine from last year’s climb. Caroline Hayes ’27, All-NEPSAC and a Central Connecticut commit, is the solid defender already decorated from Class B year one. Janalyn Weber ’26 (Jani) and Maya Atwood ’26 both took All-NEPSAC honorable mention; Weber also landed WWNEPSSA All-Star ink. Watch crafty junior Ester Asamoah ’28. Emma Mazur ’27 earned Founders League honor. Juniors Stella-Rose Lecompte and Melia Belden were NEPSGSA Junior All-Stars — Lecompte also Founders League — rounding out a room that is not a two-name story.

Across Founders, the slate includes threats like Ruth Amponsah at Taft — a 2027 midfielder committed to UConn. That is the Founders version of Andjus’s LA warning: the danger is not one Friday. It is the talent density on the other touchline every week.

Off the scoreline, the program focus fits the calendar: an extremely tough schedule in league and out, with an early emphasis on keeping games from getting away. Some Septembers are about pouring in goals. This one, for a Class B program that just announced itself, is about surviving a Founders and out-of-league gauntlet without letting the scoreboard run away.

Short on soft dates. Long on the ask.

Groton: build the standard before the week gets loud

Groton sits between those two arcs — not a rebuilding year, not a title spike. The school’s own past-seasons list has them at 8-7-2 in 2025–26 after 4-11-2 the year before: progress, not a coronation, in a league that still refuses to blink.

Spring’s group had barely begun when he sized them up.

“We just started yesterday, so it’s very early,” he said. “But we have a positive group that I’m excited to work with.”

The names he wants watched: seniors Apple Zhu and Zoe Hardwick, junior Abby Vanden-Eykel, and sophomore Lily Shapiro. Three class years, one through-line. Zhu and Hardwick as the upperclass presence when the week gets loud. Vanden-Eykel already on the board as a junior — she picked up ISL honorable mention a year ago. Shapiro as the early look that keeps notebooks open.

Spring did not load them with adjectives. He named them. In a league this deep, that is a vote.

What will not show up next to a goal total is the culture he is trying to lock in before the schedule gets louder: “Simply adopting a mindset of growth and resilience while putting other people before yourself.” That is Groton’s version of Middlesex’s mental-toughness ask and Walker’s survive-the-gauntlet ask — the invisible half of September.

And the ISL reminder sits underneath all of it. Soft weeks are not coming. The talent is.

The early read

Three rooms. One condition.

Middlesex is healthier and hungrier heading into a rebound year. Walker’s is in Class B year two, trying to prove the climb after a 12-6, title-winning jump — with Dexter and Loomis already on the doorstep. Groton is stacking class years and a standard that has to travel on nights when nothing about the week was easy.

The common thread is not misery. It is density. Spring’s ISL and the Founders slate both refuse to hand out free dates. Andjus’s measuring stick at Lawrence Academy — named threats, a deep supporting cast, and boards full of All-NEPSAC ink — is what that density looks like when it has a jersey number.

Soft weeks are not on the schedule. The girls who treat every one of those nights like it matters are the ones worth watching when the leaves turn.

Corrections: editorial@themasspitch.com.

— Mass Pitch Staff