Amy Romano Field Hockey Scrimmage Returns After 1-Year Hiatus

ENFIELD, CT — After a one-year hiatus due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Amy Romano Memorial Field Hockey Scrimmage returns to Enfield High School this Sunday, with 14 teams competing from three New England states.

The annual event kicks off just prior to 10 a.m. with a brief ceremony honoring Romano, a beloved athlete, coach and teacher who died unexpectedly at age 40 on Jan. 11, 2007. Team entrance fees and fan donations support the Amy Romano Memorial Scholarship, a $1,000 annual award to a deserving student-athlete from Enfield High School. The scholarship is administered by the Enfield Athletic Hall of Fame.

Romano, who in 1997 joined her dad Tony as the first father-daughter Hall of Fame duo in Enfield, was a standout multi-sport athlete at the former Enrico Fermi High School. She was an All-State selection in both field hockey and softball, compiling an 18-0 regular season record as a softball pitcher in her senior year.

She continued to play both sports at Assumption College (now University) in Worcester, Mass., earning All-Northeast Region honors three times in field hockey and compiling 40 collegiate wins in softball, including a no-hitter against Winthrop College. She was inducted into the Assumption Athletic Hall of Fame in 2001, and is also a member of the Connecticut Softball Hall of Fame.

Romano was an elementary school teacher, serving as head teacher at the former Thomas Alcorn School in Thompsonville. She also coached field hockey at her old high school in the early 2000s, and was a member of the Hall of Fame board of directors.

Following her passing, the Hall of Fame board established the memorial scholarship in her name. The initial recipient was Erica Pyznar, who played for Romano at Fermi, then literally followed in her footsteps by playing field hockey at Assumption.

Pyznar and her mother, Marie, decided to try organizing a field hockey tournament in Romano's memory. The Friends of Amy Romano Sports Committee was formed in 2009, and the inaugural event was celebrated late that summer.

Schools from Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island will be playing in the scrimmage, during which each team plays three 7-on-7 games on half-size turf fields and an 11-on-11 contest on a regulation-size grass field. The first contests begin at 10 a.m. sharp.

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