Cranbrook Kingswood's varsity field hockey team named Molly Sylvester Beresford, a 1949 Kingswood graduate and former All-Detroit selection, as Honorary Captain at its Homecoming game in Bloomfield Hills.

Beresford walked onto the field through a tunnel of raised arms formed by the current players, according to a Cranbrook Schools announcement published Tuesday, Sept. 22. Wearing a commemorative jersey presented to her that evening, she joined this year's captains and made the ceremonial pass-back, then stayed to hit balls with the team.

Cranbrook Kingswood Director of Athletics Keith Levinthal called it one of his favorite moments at the school. "Watching Molly with our students was a great reminder of this place's history and the generations of students and alumni who have represented Cranbrook Kingswood," he said.

The Cranes played the Homecoming game under the lights the week of Sept. 15. Senior players were recognized before Beresford was introduced as Honorary Captain.

She spoke with the current squad before the ceremony. The players gathered around her, then formed the tunnel that brought her onto the field.

Beresford's classmates remembered her as "a demon with the field hockey stick," a nod to the fierce playing style that earned her a spot on the All-Detroit team. At Kingswood she also served as vice president of the K-Club and was active in Church Cabinet.

Her field hockey career extended beyond campus. Beresford and her Kingswood teammates traveled to Northway Lodge in the Catskills to train with Constance "Connie" Applebee, the British educator widely credited with introducing field hockey to the United States. Applebee first demonstrated the sport at Harvard in 1901 and helped found the United States Field Hockey Association in 1922. She also opened Tegwitha Hockey Camp in Mt. Pocono, Pa., in 1923, according to USA Field Hockey. It was the first field hockey camp in the country.

The connection between a Kingswood student of the late 1940s and the woman who brought the sport to America in 1901 is a thread that stretches across nearly the entire history of U.S. field hockey.

The Cranes sit at 3-5 overall and 0-2 in league play with a two-game losing streak, according to MaxPreps. Cranbrook Kingswood travels to Marian on Thursday, Sept. 24, visits Detroit Country Day for a league game Saturday, Sept. 26, and plays at Bloomfield Hills on Monday, Sept. 28.