Gilmartin takes over HHS field hockey
By Bob Nuse, The Packet Group
It wasn’t all that long ago that Dorian Gilmartin was on the playing field for Hillsborough High School.
Now, just over a year removed from college, Gilmartin feels ready and eager to lead the Hillsborough field hockey team from the sidelines as its head coach.
”I have had the opportunity to be around a lot of different coaches even from when I was small with CYO basketball all the way through college,” Gilmartin said. “At UConn I had two different head coaches and numerous assistant coaches. I have seen how they get players to buy in and I am mixing and matching from all of the coaches I have had.”
Gilmartin was a standout on the field hockey and lacrosse fields for the Raiders before graduating in 2009. She went on to play lacrosse as the University of Connecticut where she was a four-year performer for the Huskies.
After spending last spring as an assistant lacrosse coach with the Raiders, Gilmartin has stepped in as the new head field hockey coach, replacing Lyndsay Boettke.
”I have been playing sports since I was 3 years old,” Gilmartin said. “I always knew coaching would be the be-all, end-all. I have played field hockey and lacrosse and they don’t have big pro leagues and teams, so I knew coaching was what I was going to want to do in the future.
”I was close with Coach Boettke. She came on as head coach when I was a junior. We were very close and I would keep in contact. Last year I volunteered a little toward the end of the season and helped the girls out. I have always been around the program even though I was not in high school anymore.”
When Gilmartin realized the field hockey head coaching job was going to become available this fall, she knew it was an opportunity she wanted to pursue.
”(Boettke) reached out to me when she told me she would not be coming back to coach,” Gilmartin said. “She wanted to know if I was interested. I thought I might jump into lacrosse college coaching. This was a job I always told (Boettke) I was interested in. The running joke was I would graduate college and help her for a few years and then take over.
”When she said she wasn’t going to be coaching I got in touch with all the channels needed to. I spoke to (athletic director) Mike Fanizzi and I jumped in right away. I told him this is a job I am 100 percent into and would love to have the opportunity to accept.”
Gilmartin knows some of the current players from having spent some time with the team last year as a volunteer as well as from her time coaching lacrosse at the school.
”I don’t know them super well but I know enough that it was a smooth transition,” she said. “I have seen some of the seniors and juniors the last couple years. It is nice to have them getting on board. I want to put my mark on the program. When I was a senior we were pretty good and well respected in the conference and county. I want to bring the team back to that.”
After a brief time thinking she might want to coach at the college level, Gilmartin appears to have found a home at her alma mater, where she is excited to jump into her first head coaching job.
”Last summer I applied to a bunch of college coaching jobs for lacrosse and then got in touch with Beth Murrin and was the JV lacrosse coach this past spring,” Gilmartin said. “I kept an ear to the ground to see what other jobs were around. When Lyndsay told me she was leaving I knew this was a job I wanted and could do well.”
The Raiders will open the season on Sept. 5 at Hunterdon Central and Gilmartin hopes to have the team ready to play right out of the gate.
”Every day I try to tell them different things they are doing better than before,” she said. “I always try to put that in their heads that tomorrow they will be better than today and today they are better than they were yesterday. As long as we keep building the sky is the limit for this team. I think the girls have a lot of potential.”