Jo Carollo slid a shiny, new, orange glove over her left hand and jogged to her position in the center of the field during a St. Joseph’s field hockey practice last season.
“It was glowing,” teammate Meredith Dunn recalled. “We said, ‘Ooh, Jo, new glove,’ Then, she was stopping every single ball, and we said, ‘It’s the new glove.’”
With or without her signature orange glove, Carollo will be easy to recognize as she directs the Angels’ midfield in the season opener against Louisville-Manual at 8 p.m. Friday on the opening night of the 26th Gateway Classic at Sportport International in Maryland Heights.
St. Joseph’s, the Missouri state runner-up last season, will join state champion John Burroughs, Kentucky state runner-up Manual and Illinois state runner-up New Trier in Pool A of the prestigious, three-day event from Aug 30-Sep 1.
“It will be very exciting,” Carollo said. “I love hard competition. It helps us grow.”
As a junior, Carollo scored 10 goals and added eight assists for a St. Joseph’s team that advanced to its first state title game since 2016. She displayed an uncanny ability to keep the ball attached to her stick while weaving through defenders, and a flawless ability to execute block tackles without fouling.
As a senior, the Harvard commit will continue to operate in key roles as the flyer on defensive corners, a playmaker on offensive corners and a masterful magician in the center of the field.
“I want to be a consistent leader for the team and have a really supportive position in the middle,” Carollo said.
Over the summer, Carollo helped her Aim Field Hockey Club team qualify for Nationals, a tournament held in Virginia Beach for the best 24 club teams in the country.
“It was the first time going to Nationals for everyone on the team and it was such a cool environment,” Carollo said. “We were going in to have fun and we ended up 11th in the nation, which was really exciting.”
‘Fun’ was such a point of emphasis for St. Joseph’s last season that players wrote the word ‘Fun’ on their wrists prior to each game. Playing with joy helped the Angels appreciate each step of their journey to the state title game, but a powerful, undefeated John Burroughs team prevented them from achieving the ultimate prize on the season’s final day. .
“It’s a lot of pressure being in that championship game, but I feel like our team really thrives in pressure,” Carollo said. “Obviously, the goal is go back (to the title game), but we have a lot of games before that, so the focus will be working as a team throughout all of them and staying consistent.”
And consistency is the true signature of Carollo’s game, despite the flashiness of her orange glove.
As for the backstory behind the glove that has become her trademark:
“No story. I think it was on sale,” she said.