As one of Tufts field hockey’s most prolific offensive and defensive players, graduating senior midfielder Marguerite Salamone has left an impressive impact. Salamone’s intensity and grit is unmatched, and her consistent efforts have earned her a spot on the All-American first team, the All-Region team and the All-Conference team in her final season.
Playing in every single game since she was a first-year and starting all but one game, Salamone has a commanding presence on the field. Her two-way value was clear in her senior campaign, as she led the team with seven assists and scored six goals, while also earning NESCAC Defensive Player of the Year.
Salamone has been on the forefront of the team's success over the years. She helped the team win a NESCAC championship in the 2016 season and advance to the championship in 2018 and 2019. She also played in two NCAA National Championship games in 2016 and 2018 and made an appearance in the Elite Eight this past season.
Coach Tina Mattera praised Salamone’s dedication to the team and to the sport.
“She has kept the standard high,” Mattera said. “I mean if the girl running next to you is giving a hundred percent and working her butt off, you are going to as well. She expected a lot of herself and her teammates too. She put pressure on herself to work hard and be the best player, and she also expected that from everyone around her.”
While Salamone has contributed to the team’s success, she shared that her favorite part of field hockey is the relationships she has created with her teammates and coaches.
“I am a really competitive person, and it is really nice to be with a group of girls that really wanted to dedicate their time to one common goal," Salamone said. "We all love to play field hockey and just be together, those are some of my best memories.”
Reflecting back on her college search process, Salamone wanted to continue playing the sport that she loves while also prioritizing academics. Her search began with looking at schools that offered a robust education and a competitive conference for athletics.
“I really wanted to play field hockey and have a team, but I was also really into science and math, so having a school that had a good engineering school was important to me,” Salamone said. “[I] have a lot more opportunities to do more research and not spend all my time in field hockey, as academics come first.”
Outside of field hockey, Salamone has done work in theresearch lab of assistant professor Madeleine Oudin, which looks at cancer tumors and cancer metastasis. After the field hockey season ended in the fall, Salamone joined the club marathon team.
Salamone is among the class of 2020's top athletes, and as her time at Tufts comes to a close, she reflects on the end of the year.
“For me it is mostly about closure, and it has been a bit hard to understand that this will all be over soon," Salamone said. "It is just a bit sad because we don't have those last couple of things with [our] friends — to go to Espresso one last time.”
Mattera describes how Salamone has developed as an athlete over the past four years.
“As an athlete, her overall game sense got better," Mattera said. "She became smarter and smarter with the ball, understood our system and she took her game to another level in terms of her skill."
She also commended her intensity.
"As a person I think [Salamone] is just so intense, and this past year she really knew how to balance it and channel it the right way. She is intense, but she wants to enjoy the experience and make it a positive intensity on the team. She was really cognizant of how she came across and what she was saying to people and how she was delivering it. I think that everyone respected her even more because she was always a 'you got this' kind of player, and became a great teammate.”
