When Kristen Hamill, then a freshman defender on the Syracuse women’s soccer team, walked into head coach Pat Farmer’s office at the end of last season, Farmer began to worry.

‘I though Kristen was going to complain about her playing time,’ Farmer said.

Instead Farmer got something unexpected. Kristen had an offer for him: ‘She said to me, ‘Hey, my sister is interested in transferring from Fordham. Do you think you might want to take a look?”

Nine months removed from that meeting, Kristen, now a sophomore, and her sister, junior forward Darcy Hamill, are teammates on the SU women’s soccer team. They are the first sister combination in the program’s 11-year history.

‘I don’t think we envisioned this happening,’ Darcy said. ‘We saw ourselves playing soccer in college but I never saw myself playing in Syracuse, and much less on the same team as Kristen.’

Darcy transferred to Syracuse this summer after two years at Fordham.

‘I just didn’t really get along with the coach,’ Darcy said, ‘And seeing as I went there to play soccer in the first place, it just didn’t make much sense to be there anymore.’

Unlike her sister, Kristen didn’t need to wait to make it to Syracuse.

‘I wanted to come here even when I was in high school,’ said Kristen, who along with her sister graduated from nearby Nottingham High School. Both sisters agree, though, that much has changed since Nottingham.

‘Playing together in high school, there was a lot more joking around,’ Kristen said. ‘This level of play definitely has a lot more serious tone than that.’

Yet, despite so much change around them, the sisters’ relationship remains the same as it always has. Both girls emphasize how much they have helped each other throughout their respective careers.

‘We were never all that competitive,’ Darcy said. ‘It was always more about helping each other.’

‘Our positions helped us,’ Kristen said. ‘Me being a defender, I would defend her during practice so that she could work on her offense and vice versa.’

The support system between the two was in full effect during Sept. 26’s 0-0 tie against Dartmouth, when Darcy went down with a leg injury. Kristen knew right away her sister was in pain.

Luckily for Darcy her injury isn’t all that serious; it’s what she describes as ‘a really bad charlie horse.’ Farmer said Darcy didn’t travel on the team’s road trip last weekend but resumed action against Providence on Friday. There is no doubt the elder Hamill didn’t mind having her sister around for support during the injury.

For right now, both girls admit while they are disappointed with the team’s 2-10-3 record, they are happy with their individual roles as reserves. With Kristen gaining experience at middle defense and Darcy coming back off her injury, Farmer, who also coached a sister combination during his tenure at Ithaca from 1987-1993, seems excited by the possibilities of having both sisters together on the field.

‘Darcy and Kristen have very different games,’ Farmer said. ‘Kristen is the type of player who wins the ball for us in the back, and Darcy is somebody we’re trying to get that ball to up front.’

But regardless where they are, they’re on the field together – which is what Kristen wanted when she walked into Farmer’s office.

‘Our relationship is definitely a lot different than other teammates,’ Kristen said. ‘We’re a lot closer.’

Published on October 7, 2006 at 12:00 pm