Wellesley Student Dies at Field Hockey Practice

A Wellesley student has died after collapsing at field hockey practice.

Casey Dunne was 16 years old. She attended the Noble and Greenough High School in Dedham.

“She brought joy to everything she did to everything around her,” her father, Matthew, told the Boston Globe.

Dunne collapsed Friday during her field hockey practice at Noble and was soon pronounced dead. She suffered a brain hemorrhage, her father said.

She was a “much-loved classmate,” the school said in a statement.

Dunne played ice hockey, soccer, and lacrosse in Wellesley, according to her obituary. She loved to sing, act, and shoot photos.

Visiting hours will be held Wednesday 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. at George F. Doherty and Sons Funeral Home in Wellesley. A funeral Mass will be held on Thursday.

Dunne is survived by her two parents and four siblings.

This is her obituary:

Casey Hatheway Dunne, of Wellesley, died unexpectedly on October 9th. Casey, a 16-year-old member of the Nobles class of 2017, was the joyous, generous, and beloved daughter of Matthew W. and Mary Higgins Dunne; the adored sister of Alexandra, Michael, Meghan, and Ryan, all of Wellesley; the treasured granddaughter of Anthony L. Dunne and Helene Reilly Dunne, of Hudson, Ohio, and of Judy Olin Higgins and the late William Waugh Higgins, of Greenwich, Connecticut. Her aunts and uncles from across the country mourn her loss: Barbara and Bill Epifanio, Bill Higgins and Patti Kelley, Tommy Dunne and Rebecca Barry, Rich and Carrie Higgins, David and Kim Dunne, Mike and Carla Higgins, Jim and Diana Higgins, and Molly Dunne and Paul Wernersbach; as do her 16 cousins: Ann, Kate, William, Liam, Dawson, Norah, MacKenzie, Maggie, Caroline, Samantha, Kaitlyn, Andrew, Christopher, Elena, James, and Elizabeth.

Casey attended Tenacre Country Day School prior to joining the Nobles community. Her undeniable zest for life inspired her teammates on Wellesley Youth Hockey girls’ teams, on town soccer and lacrosse teams, and, most recently, on her Nobles varsity field hockey team. She shared the beauty of her soul as a young ballerina at Boston Ballet School and as a singer, an actress, and a photographer at Tenacre and at Nobles. Her caring, generous spirit touched many lives, locally in Achieve classrooms, during summers as a camper and counselor-in-training at Lochearn Camp for Girls, and further afield in a Romanian orphanage and in the homes and schools of Bolivia’s Amazon region.

Family, friends, teammates, teachers, coaches, and mentors will gather to celebrate Casey during visiting hours on Wednesday, Oct. 14 from 4:00 to 8:00 p.m. at the George F. Doherty & Sons Funeral Home, 477 Washington St., Wellesley, MA. Funeral Mass will be held at 10:00 am on Thursday, Oct. 15, at St. Paul Church in Wellesley, MA. Interment Woodlawn Cemetery, Wellesley.

Memorial donations may be made to The Achieve Program, c/o Noble and Greenough School, 10 Campus Drive, Dedham, MA, 02026. Achieve is a tuition-free program for low-income area middle school children based at Nobles, for which Casey served as a tutor.