Leadership Via Dedication, Stability Has Nauset Girls Soccer Back In The Postseason

NORTH EASTHAM – There is the classic adage about past generations needing to walk to school uphill both ways — but Nauset senior Caroline Bothfeld has a route of her own that could give the tired old trope some competition.

Bothfeld commutes a cumulative four hours just to play soccer. A Marstons Mills resident, she travels one hour to get to Nauset, where she’s a captain on the girls soccer team, and an hour back home, followed by an hour up to Hingham, where she plays club, then one last hour back to the Cape.

That dedication to the sport — made as evident as can be by the long repeated drive alone — is helping steer the Warriors, who have seen marked improvement on both sides of the ball this year.

“She's beyond passionate about soccer,” Nauset head coach Evan Botting said. “She's obsessive about soccer.”

Bothfeld started playing soccer when she was 4 years old. Her parents had played; her whole family played. She fell in love with the game during the COVID-19 pandemic and has been making that cross-Cape-and-beyond journey by car to get her fix since eighth grade.

An ankle injury sidelined Bothfeld for basically her entire freshman year. But like the rookie quarterback who sits on the bench for some time before taking over as the starter — spending game days steeping in the strategy and preparation and practice — Bothfeld had a role model then whose profile she could absorb.

That person was Olivia Avellar, a former star for Nauset, now a junior playing at Boston University. She was a significant inspiration for Bothfeld, and they were, and still are, best friends. Avellar was the player who’d push Bothfeld — and was the player Bothfeld wanted to beat.

Avellar has served as a blueprint on how to guide a team. At the same time however, Bothfeld carved out her own footprint and legacy, far from anyone’s shadow.

“I think just being really mentally tough on myself and just really working hard, not just on the field but in the classroom, too, getting good grades and also just having fun,” Bothfeld said. “I love to play.”

She’s now in her second year as a captain. Nauset aims to have different types of leadership in their captain roles, according to Botting. Some are vocal. Some speak more through their actions. 

When the Warriors are in doubt, they look to the bench for guidance from their coaches. Yet they also look toward Bothfeld to ascertain her reaction.

“Caroline was kind of chosen because she's a game-day player and she works her butt off on game days,” Botting said. “She's going to want to compete. She looks forward to matching up against either the best defender from the other team or the best attacking player. She relishes that, and we need people to see that.”

She’s also just a complete player on the field. She’s strong physically and technically, fast and two-footed — with a juggling record in the thousands, per Botting. She’s tall and dangerous in the air, with an incredible first touch, he said. She’s played all over on the field.

“Caroline has really been like the Swiss Army knife,” Botting said. “She's kind of locked down the best attacking players in games when we needed her to, and then in other games where we need that kind of spark going forward, she's given us that. So just her versatility and what she has, it really is like the complete package.”

One anecdote from earlier this season fully epitomizes not only Bothfeld’s method for leading but how being an effective captain doesn’t have to remain an abstract concept. There are times within the role when real tangible gains for a team can be reaped.

The Warriors were facing Monomoy in September when Bothfeld earned herself a penalty kick. Except, she deferred the attempt to sophomore Stella Hurvitz. 

She could have taken the shot herself, maybe padded her stats. But she didn’t, instead giving the scoring opportunity to an up-and-coming player. It was the type of decision she’d seen Avellar make.

“She was my favorite person to ever play soccer with, and I just knew it was something [Avellar] would have done,” Bothfeld said.

Hurvitz converted the kick and has since that point been Nauset’s second-leading goal scorer. 

“She's killing it, which I'm so happy to see,” Bothfeld said. “She's definitely quiet, but she keeps a presence on the field. She's awesome.”

Whether it’s four hours of driving or an on-field moment, what Bothfeld does and decides to do fully reflects passion for the sport.

“It just goes to show you what her level of commitment is like,” Botting said. “This is kind of all she's really loved and [has] dedicated a ton of time to.”

Last season was also the only time Nauset has not qualified for the tournament under the MIAA’s current playoff format instituted in 2021. The Warriors, though, have found defensive stability, which has propelled them back toward the Division 3 postseason pool (in which they’re currently ranked No. 34).

Finding that defensive ground wasn’t necessarily a given. The Warriors had notable holes to fill left by graduates like Violet Roche, who was the MIAA’s Harry Agganis Student-Athlete of the Year for 2025-26.

At goalkeeper, sophomore Eleanor Coccoro has excelled, with Nauset having seven shutouts on the year. Junior Gianna Paravisini slid from midfield to the back line. Paired with junior Peyton Hill, the two defenders have stepped up massively, Botting said. At right back, junior Finley Williams and sophomore Raya Campeau have split duties.

Altogether, the unit has given the Warriors the foundation to possess the ball better, which has acted as a critical piece of their operation as a team that’s been playing out of the back. They’ve outpossessed nearly every opponent they’ve played, according to Botting.

“A lot of our attacks kind of start from people at the back and people that see the field well, so that's just given us a little bit more predictability and organization, which has helped us not just defensively, but it's helped us create more chances this year,” Botting said.

That’s all been a change from last year, during which the Warriors, according to Botting, found it hard to pin down their identity. They threw players forward in an effort to create chances. It felt rushed, whereas this year has played more composed, controlled. 

“I think with each game we definitely push each other the most, and I think at the beginning of the season we really said we wanted to pride ourselves on sportsmanship, but also compete really hard,” Bothfeld said. “So I think just we've been pushing each other a lot, too.”