Harwich Teacher Named Next Head Coach Of Monomoy Field Hockey

HARWICH – One of the Lower Cape’s most consistently dominant high school sports programs has a new leader at the helm.

Laura Morris, a third grade teacher at Harwich Elementary School, was announced as the next head coach of the Monomoy varsity field hockey team last Thursday. 

Morris joins a program that has reached the state semifinals five years in a row as it pursues a first-ever championship. The top coaching job opened after last season upon the departure of Kyle Cappallo, who steered the team to four of those semis appearances (as well as two trips to the final).

A Harwich High School grad who played under coach Cheryl Poore, Morris said she had wanted to be part of the Monomoy program for a while, having seen the team “go through some really high highs and some low lows.”

“I just want to be able to help them to really achieve what they haven't been able to do the past few years,” Morris said. “They have some really amazing players on their team, and I want to help bring them all together to really achieve their goals of winning a championship.”

Morris has coached field hockey for a long time, though not yet at the high school level, she said. She previously coached at Monomoy Regional Middle School and has also coached her daughter, Brynn, and her summer league teams.

She played field hockey at Springfield College, where she was a two-time All-American. Morris has taught at Harwich Elementary for more than 20 years.

“With various coaching experiences, she brings a wealth of knowledge, and a passion for the game,” a Monomoy press release said.

The Sharks have gone 50-11-11 with 14 playoffs wins in the last four years. They were the top-ranked team in Division 4 at the end of the 2025 regular season. The team has elite goaltending, strong leaders in the midfield and defense, and multiple players who can score. Morris hopes, she said, to “really bring everybody together as a team.”

“My goal is to go in, be super transparent, really give them my expectations from the beginning,” Morris said. “I think that there's a lot of talent on this team. We need to come together and sort of have everybody be accountable on this team.” 

Morris further hopes to foster player growth from junior varsity up — by utilizing some of the program’s higher-skilled players to work with younger members of the team, in a way that wouldn’t handicap the needs of varsity.

“The Cape has a really great club team that has really been working with these girls to develop their skills, and I want them to be able to share those skills with some of the players that are still working on those skills,” Morris said.

The Sharks field hockey program has been notably successful in the past few years, playing deep into November with long tournament runs every fall. The last box to check would be a state championship. Morris feels the pressure and the stress to deliver that elusive, most triumphant feather in Monomoy’s cap. But she’ll have to first put that aside and “develop a team that has mutual respect for each other,” she said.

It’ll start, per Morris, with creating a group that’s even-keeled, accountable and focused — that gives their best effort and is resilient after the experience of five straight trips to the semifinals, that will use those experiences to fuel them to a state championship.

“We'll get there,” Morris said.