Sisters Olivia and Carli Harpel are the leading scorers on High School North girls’ lacrosse team, but their introduction to the sport they love and excel at was serendipitous. One day the girls’ father, Mario, was having a casual conversation with a neighbor at the bus stop. The neighbor mentioned how much her daughter was enjoying playing lacrosse. Mario mentioned the conversation to his family and Olivia, a fourth grader at the time, decided to give the sport a try.
“She loved it from the moment she started,” said her mother, Mary Ann.
The next year, younger sister Carli started playing, too.
Even though lacrosse was a new discovery for the family, fitness and athletics have always been big for the Harpels. Mary Ann is a fitness professional and though Mario’s day job is in the engineering industry, he is also the wrestling coach at Hopewell Valley Central High School. The girls have played a number of sports over the years, including basketball, dance, karate, and tennis. At North, in addition to lacrosse, Olivia, now a senior, plays field hockey, Carli, a sophomore, plays soccer, and both girls run track.
“I had them try any sport they wanted,” said Mary Ann. “We wanted to expose them to as much as possible.”
Prior to living in West Windsor, the Harpels lived in Ohio, where both Olivia and Carli were born. Mary Ann and Mario are both from the Langhorne/Levittown area of Pennsylvania, and they returned to the east coast when Mario got a job in New York. They chose to move to West Windsor for the usual reasons — the good reputation of the school district and proximity to a train station for Mario’s commute.
When the girls began playing lacrosse, they played with the Lightning, a local club team. Then the head of Lightning Lacrosse, Cory Easter, suggested that the girls attend a lacrosse camp run by Michele DeJuliis. DeJuliis had played on the U.S. Women’s National Lacrosse Team, which she captained during its victory over Australia for the gold medal in the 2009 Women’s Lacrosse World Cup. This happened right before Olivia and Carli attended her camp, an experience which Mary Ann described as “another catalyst” for her daughters.
“The girls were sucked in even more,” said Mary Ann. “It was very inspirational. She’s an awesome role model and an awesome person. There was no looking back after meeting her.”
Since then, Olivia and Carli have been playing for DeJuliis’ Ultimate Lacrosse Club.
Though the Harpel girls have always played for the same club, because they are two years apart, they never had a chance to play on the same team until high school. The girls, who are very close, have been thoroughly enjoying the opportunity to play together these past two years.
Their opponents probably have not enjoyed the Knights’ double threat nearly as much. Olivia leads the team with 59 goals and 21 assists, while Carli has added 32 goals and 17 assists. The sisters helped the Knights to an 11-0 start, and in the team’s first loss — an 18-8 defeat by Moorestown on April 28 — the Harpel sisters accounted for all eight North goals.
Olivia described her younger sister as “more than a best friend. I guess on the field it’s nice to have someone you can trust in a different way. The team is close as a whole. We’re all best friends, but a sister is different. And even though she’s younger than me, I look up to her.”
Carli added, “Finally getting a chance to play with her last year was really amazing. Obviously, I’ve looked up to her my whole life.”
North’s head girls’ lacrosse coach, Beth Serughetti, said that you can see the sisters’ closeness on the field.
“They’re both fantastic players,” she said. “Having them on the field at the same time is an added bonus because they connect so well together. There’s just a sense they always know where the other is on the field.”
Even so, the Harpel girls are very different players. Serughetti explained, “Olivia is extremely intense, very vocal, a fabulous leader on and off the field. Carli is more quiet, extremely poised. She really has wonderful placement with shots.”
The coach added that though Olivia has always been talented, she has really grown as a player during high school. “She used to put a lot of pressure on herself,” said Serughetti. “I think she’s really learned how to use her teammates more.”
The Harpels are not the only pair of sisters on North’s team. Serughetti said that the other set of sister on the team, junior Alex (27 goals) and sophomore Morgan Hendry (20 goals), operate similarly. “It’s always very exciting to see sister connections on the field,” she said.
Other than sports, the Harpel girls don’t have much time for extracurricular activities. Carli sang in the Princeton Girlchoir for several years, but she had to drop it because of her commitments to lacrosse and travel soccer. However, she still gets a chance to sing with her school choir and she sang the national anthem at the North-South boys and girls lacrosse games on April 12.
Mary Ann described both girls as avid readers and said the family as a whole enjoys hiking, going to the shore, and taking walks with their two dogs. She said that when the girls have the opportunity, they mostly want to relax at home, which she completely supports. “I like to promote downtime,” she said.
Next year Olivia will continue her lacrosse career at Northwestern University. “I’m excited and honored to go,” she said. She is looking forward to attending the school both for its athletic program and the academics. She isn’t sure what she wants to study yet, but expressed a desire to minor in business.
Carli would like to continue playing lacrosse in college, too, when the time comes. “We’ll see,” she said. “I would like to play with my sister, if possible.”
Girls’ Lacrosse
South (3-11): A 20-13 loss to Rancocas Valley on April 22. Goals: Amanda Easter 5; Bianca Ingato 3; Rachael Salerno 4; Jasmine Wallack 1. Saves: Claire Meiers 7.
A 21-10 loss to Notre Dame on April 24. Goals: Eliana Hughes 2; Samantha McCormick 2; Dana Salerno 1; R. Salerno 4.
A 19-9 loss to Robbinsville on April 26. Goals: Easter 1; Ingato 2; Maddie Maley 1; McCormick 1; D. Salerno 1; R. Salerno 3. Saves: Meiers 11.
A 17-7 win over Middletown South on April 29. Goals: Easter 4; Hughes 2; Ingato 4; McCormick 2; D. Salerno 1; R. Salerno 4. Saves: Juliana Ardila 6.
North (11-1): An 18-4 over Hightstown on April 17. Goals: Carli Harpel 1; Olivia Harpel 5; Alex Hendry 3; Morgan Hendry 1; Catherine Mak 2; Natalie Munoz 1; Nadia Nida 1; Deirdre Pehnke 1; Talise Redmond 3. Saves: Eva Boal 5, Rachel Loo 1.
An 18-2 win over Lawrenceville on April 22. Goals: C. Harpel 5; O. Harpel 6; A. Hendry 1; M. Hendry 3; Redmond 2; Julia Tampellini 1. Saves: Boal 8; Loo 1.
A 19-14 win over Robbinsville on April 24. Goals: C. Harpel 3; O. Harpel 6; A. Hendry 3, M. Hendry 3; Mak 1; Tampellini 3. Saves: Boal 6.
An 18-8 loss to Moorestown on April 28. Goals: C. Harpel 2; O. Harpel 6. Saves: Boal 4.
