Their decisions were not as intertwined as you might think, but it has led to the feeling of a home away from home.
Background
The first time Post and Perrier met was in the sixth grade.
Perrier and Post
"Our lockers were next to each other because we were in the same advisory homeroom," said Post. "The first time I met Amélie was around a week before sixth grade started. You set up your locker a week ahead of time, and they gave you a tour of the building.
"I remember turning next to me and her saying, 'hi I'm Amélie' and I was like 'hi I'm Hatley.'"
Flash forward many years to when it was time to decide on college.
Post was the first of the three to choose, and she was drawn to Dartmouth for the same reason many are.
"I knew I wanted a smaller liberal arts style environment and I had been up to Vermont in the fall once before and loved it," she said. "I found the flexibility that it offered very attractive. The campus is gorgeous, so I fell in love with the area. The team also seemed like it had a really good environment, and seemed to all get along really well.
"It was a place where I knew I'd be able to be a student-athlete," Post continued. "My academics weren't going to be coming second to field hockey, which was very important to me."
Perrier was the same class year as Post, but committed later.
"Hatley actually committed at the end of sophomore year, and I was still looking at schools, looking at D1s and D3s," said Perrier. "I came up to Dartmouth the summer after sophomore year right before junior year. I came to a camp and loved it. Then, I came to a clinic in the fall and ended up committing.
"It wasn't that I looked at Dartmouth for Hatley," she continued. "It was more that I came across Dartmouth, loved it, loved the campus, loved the coaches and loved the academics."
The added benefit was that Hatley was already committed to Dartmouth.
"I would already have a great friend on the team to go through the transition," said Perrier.
While Post and Perrier were classmates, Edwards is two years younger.
At St. John's, Edwards was the only freshman to make varsity (during Post and Perrier's junior year).
"Piper is very energetic, she's very fun and brings a lot of energy," said Perrier, "Age didn't matter. I just remember how fun she was to have around."
Post echoed those sentiments.
"Piper brought such loud energy, was positive and fun to be around," she said.
Edwards and Post at Edwards' Visit
Similar to Perrier, Edwards also found Dartmouth on her own.
"In October of my junior year, I came up to Dartmouth for the first time for a clinic, and then was committed two weeks later," said Edwards. "I had never been up here before and just loved it. I really liked the team, the campus is beautiful and the people were so nice."
It was also nice to have two familiar faces.
"My official visit was hosted by Amélie, so I went through a day in her life as a freshman on the team, went to her classes and stayed in her dorm," said Edwards. "I talked to both of them and heard about their experiences. I knew I could trust what they were saying."
When Perrier heard Edwards visiting, she volunteered to serve as the host.
"She stayed with me in the dorms and remember being so excited that Piper was interested in Dartmouth," said Perrier. "I knew it would be so fun."
And as they say, the rest is history…
Developing Relationships
The way Perrier and Post described Edwards as a high school player and teammate is almost exactly how she is today. The three of them have been able to build upon their relationships, originally created at very young ages.
"We're all pretty different personalities, so that might be part of why it all works," said Post. "I believe we have a lot of the same core values that brought us to the school, but at the same time, we're all getting to explore different things.
"Amélie is pre-med. I am definitely not pre-med. Piper is a history major."
Last fall, Edwards and Post took a history class together.
"I'm a history and environmental studies double major," said Post. "It's fun having that point of overlap."
Some parts of their relationships have changed, while other aspects have remained the same.
Edwards and Perrier
"In high school before our big games, Amélie would braid my hair and she still braids my hair before games here, which is really cool," said Edwards. "I've always played defense for Hatley, including at Dartmouth, so we've grown a lot in our communication and ability to play together. We understand each other well on the field because we're always just one line apart.
"We know what we need from each other as teammates, on and off the field," Edwards continued. "If I'm having a bad day or one of them is having a bad day, I came in hitting the ground running, knowing what they would need (and vice versa)."
Post and Perrier have an extra special bond that goes back to that time they met at their lockers in the sixth grade.
"Amélie is one of my best friends on campus," said Post. "We currently live in the same building one floor apart, so that's been really fun. We've never lived in the same building before, so to be able to go down a flight of stairs, knock on her door and ask to do homework and study together has been great."
That connection is evident on the field as well.
"I have a special relationship with Hatley because we're the same year and she's a goalie, and I'm a field player," said Perrier. "In that sense, I didn't feel any competition against her at all. We have each other to lean on.
"We are our own people, but we're also great friends."
Growth
The beauty of a relationship that has gone beyond college has been seeing each other grow.
"Hatley has grown very confident in herself as a player and person," said Edwards. "She's very confident in that she knows exactly what she needs from people, which is the best quality to have as a goalie. Amélie and Hatley have always been the kinds of people who bring others up. They bring your energy and confidence up."
The same can certainly be said for Edwards as well, whose energy is infectious.
When thinking of growth, the Dartmouth experience has allowed Perrier to grow beyond, as she called it, her "bubble."
"I grew up in a bit of a bubble around all the same people and then a lot of those people from my high school would apply to the same schools and most of them would stay in the South," she said. "Not too many would venture into the Northeast. It was good to make it to Dartmouth, but also having the connections helped too. It helped being able to relate with Hatley about coming from Houston, and having that support system with Piper as well."
In many ways, it has been the best of both worlds – an opportunity for each to grow in a new place, with new people, at one of the top institutions in the world, while being surrounded by some familiar faces from home.
Those familiar faces go beyond Post, Perrier and Edwards, as current sophomore Helen Young (same year as Edwards) went to St. John's up through middle school then transferred to a different high school. But Young played club field hockey with the same club as Post, Perrier and Edwards.
"I don't know if I fully appreciated it when I committed, but Hanover is so far from Houston," said Post. "It is really nice to have that person you can text and say you really miss salsa or Tex-Mex and they totally get it.
"Or, when it's zero degrees outside, you can ask, where is the sun? Just having those cultural touch points with people that you're close to, when you're so far away from home, has definitely been a really big benefit for all of us."
They may be 1,905.9 miles from Houston, but Hanover has become a home away from home.
