Washington-Liberty High School’s athletics are a cornerstone of the school’s identity and culture. However, the school’s impressive programs would not be in place without the athletes who make them. The student athletes competing for the school represent both hard work and dedication to each sport, helping elevate the school’s reputation against its rivals. However, as athletic standouts, some of the school’s best athletes continue to play their sports at the collegiate level every year.
Another standout school athlete is senior Elizabeth Brown, who is committed to play D III field hockey at Catholic University. Brown, who began playing field hockey in middle school, made a significant switch at her friend’s urging and has continued to play field hockey ever since.
“I started playing [field hockey] after sixth grade,” Brown said. “I started playing because I quit my club soccer team that I’d been playing on since I was really little. I decided to switch because my best friend on my club soccer team was also quitting, and she was going to quit to play field hockey. She was telling me all about it, and I was like, ‘Oh, that’s really cool. I want to try something new.’ So we went, and we joined together, and then I proceeded to join a club team after that, and I’ve been on the same team since.”
This decision marked the beginning of Brown’s field hockey journey, marked by hard work and continued improvement, eventually leading to significant goals and accomplishments. Her most memorable moment throughout her high school career was receiving the Most Improved Player award.
“I would say for high school, specifically, my most improved award that I got last year [was my most memorable moment],” Brown said. “I feel like it really highlighted all my hard work that I was doing [the] summer prior and I was still doing during the season. [It] was a pretty memorable moment to be recognized in front of my whole team. I felt really honored.”
However, her growth and development did not stop after receiving the highly regarded award. In Brown’s competitive club league, she progressively moved up from team to team, eventually reaching the first team before her official commitment.
“[In] club last year, there [were] four teams for each age group, and for the highest age group, it is pretty competitive. I was on the second team last fall, [then] I moved up to the first team, which opened a lot of opportunities for me, which obviously ended up leading to my commitment,” Brown said.
Brown’s commitment process began during her junior year; however, she was initially uncertain about playing collegiate field hockey, mainly due to self-doubt stemming from other athletes.
“My commitment process started out in Sept. of last year, when I kind of began to think about college and where I might want to go,” Brown said. “I had never really thought of playing field hockey as kind of being an option, because I wasn’t always very a competent player, and I had my doubts, and my club team is very competitive, so it’s good enough that I’m on the highest team.”
However, following several opportunities, including tournaments and Identification Camp (ID) clinics where scouts watched her play, Brown began to consider playing field hockey in college, and her self-doubt had dispersed. She began talking to schools and had others reach out, until she finally received offers.
“I started to go to tournaments, and there were a lot of scouts at our games, which was not really the [norm] for me, but obviously they were not there for me,” Brown said. “They were there for the other players on my team, but I began to get recognized with that. Coaches would go up to my coach and [talk] to her and [ask] who I was. So it really highlighted my success as a player. That was [also] really rewarding, in a way, and that was one of the really big successes in the start of my commitment process. After that, I decided to start thinking about playing in college and what my options were. I would begin to get invited to ID clinics and visits, and I would go.”
However, despite the success and opportunities Brown was receiving from coaches, it was hard to balance the recruitment process, which includes traveling and attending clinics, with staying on track with school and grades. Brown believed her development with time management helped her get all her work done on time, giving her a chance to show at every opportunity available.
“The third quarter of the school year, which was the off-season for field hockey, was really hard to manage my schoolwork. Being on the road almost every weekend, going to clinics, visits [and missing] school [was challenging],” Brown said. “It was definitely hard to balance, especially with junior year being my academically hardest year of my high school career. Balancing my schoolwork [was hard], and it’s made my time management much better because it taught me that I am only gonna get [a] certain amount of time to do schoolwork, and obviously now it is different because I am already committed. But reaching out to coaches, going to every opportunity I had, was probably my key to success in finding the school that fit the best for me.”
Eventually, after weighing all her options, Catholic University offered the most benefits. After receiving both DI and DIII offers, Brown believed Catholic University was the best as it provided the best study abroad program and was the most affordable of all her schools.
“I had five solid offers, I would say, going in the process, three of them were D3 and two of them were DI so I did have a couple bigger offers,” Brown said. “Most people would tend to ask me why I picked a DIII school over a DI school and I would say, probably opportunity. I really want to study abroad, and Catholic [University] has an amazing program. [It] financially was the best option I had, and being able to compare that to the athletic scholarship I would get if I played Division I. So I feel those were probably the two main reasons. But also I felt like it was home, and in my gut, I knew that was the place I wanted to go and I wanted to be; I did not really get that feeling anywhere else. I really love the school, I really love the coach, I love the program, and I know I am going to be a valued player on the team.”
Throughout the commitment process, Brown had extensive support from both coaches and teammates. However, her biggest role whilst playing field hockey was her teammate Riley Clouse, who committed to playing DI field hockey at the American University.
“My biggest influence/role model would be my friend Riley,” Brown said. “She went to school [here], and she is now playing [for] American University in [Washington] D.C. She was very supportive, we played on the same club team before she aged out [and] she would drive me to practice. She would [also] help me throughout the recruiting process; I would go to her when I needed someone to talk to, and she would give me really great advice and was super motivational. [Riley] was overall a very supportive [teammate and] friend, and I feel like she was a shoulder I could lean on throughout the process.”
Being a committed athlete requires extreme dedication and commitment in order to outdo those competing against you for a spot on a team. Because of this, the after-school activities can be overwhelming with both school and sports. Brown struggled to balance her academics with field hockey and found it took significant adjustment throughout her junior year to maintain a commitment to both school and sports.
“For me, personally, balancing academics and athletics was really hard, especially in the start of my junior year, because everyone knows that the classes get harder and more competitive,” Brown said. “It took a lot of adjusting and a lot of reconfiguring of things, but once I got my time management skills down, which took a lot of help [from] my parents, my teachers [and] my counselor, I felt that I was in a really good place academically and athletically. I balance [school and sports] by making myself do things in the times I have and really bettering my time management overall and trying to be as productive as I can with the time that I am given to be productive.”
Moving on from the school’s athletic program, Brown begins her official college journey in the fall 2026. However, she leaves the class with some helpful advice.
“My advice [for] high school athletes is really focus on managing your time. It is okay to make mistakes; just keep your head up and do not take it for granted because it was the most fun I have ever had in my life,” Brown said.
