‘Final Four’ Fortier ends decorated
North Shore Country Day career
By Bill McLean
Julia Fortier either got pushed or fell down in a field hockey game last fall. No need to get to the bottom of that now. But the two-sport North Shore Country Day School standout hit the turf hard, her right wrist striking terra firma first.
“The wrist hurt a decent amount,” recalled Fortier, a senior and defensive center-midfielder in field hockey and soccer. “My field hockey coach [Mullery Doar] asked, ‘Are you OK?’ I told her, ‘I’m fine.’ I did not want to come out of the game. I never want to come out of a game.”
Fortier stayed in the fray, iced the wrist afterward, saw a doctor and found out she had suffered a fractured wrist.
Her response?
A shrug.
“I learned to play with a removable cast,” she said.
Last spring, near the end of her junior soccer season, Fortier sustained a head injury in a playoff match. She was told she could continue to play for the eventual Class A state runnerup but could not use her noggin to hit a ball. Don’t head a soccer ball? That’s akin to a tennis player being ordered to refrain from thumping an overhead smash. She was tempted but grudgingly refrained.
In the winter of her sophomore year, Fortier hit a ski slope in Utah. The slope won, viciously. It gashed Fortier’s right shin, which became a temporary home to 14 stitches. Three weeks later, with some extra padding covering the shin, Fortier suited up for a game in a club field hockey tournament. Total games missed: 0.
“She is tough,” Raiders girls soccer coach Lizzy Giffen said of Fortier, a 2020 Chicagoland Soccer All-State Watch List selectee and a Yale University-bound field hockey player. “You cannot get Julia off the field.”
But this heartless pandemic kept Fortier — and her two-time reigning Class A state runnerup soccer teammates — from traversing any field this spring.
The Illinois High School Association (IHSA) Board of Directors conducted a video conference on April 21 and decided to cancel all IHSA spring state tournaments. Gov. J.B. Pritzker and the Illinois State Board of Education had announced that all Illinois high schools will complete the 2019-20 school term from home via e-learning amid COVID-19 concerns.
NSCD (16-4-0 in Class A last spring) was pushed up due to the IHSA success policy and would have faced Class AA foes in the postseason this spring. The Raiders were eager for the challenge. Instead they got a different kind of new normal.
“E-learning,” Fortier said, “is going pretty smoothly. But it’s been weird, not seeing my teammates and friends in the hallways at school. Not being able to play an organized sport this spring has been tough for a lot of us. I like to be busy; always have. I’ve exercised, organized closets at home and made lists of other tasks to do, but it’s not the kind of busy I want to experience each day.”
Fortier had a hand and foot in six Final Four seasons at NSCD — those two in soccer (2018, ’19) to go with state runnerup, third place and two fourth place finishes in field hockey (a one-class, club sport where 231-student North Shore Country Day went up against the likes of 3,962-student New Trier). It’s hard to produce a more decorated prep sports career than that.
“Julia is probably best known for what she did in field hockey, but she’s also a great soccer player,” Giffen said. “I’ve called her the unsung hero, because she is incredibly talented and hardworking, and she didn’t usually get the spotlight even though she was beyond impactful in every game.”
Fortier earned Second Team Independent School League (ISL) soccer honors in 2019. Her stats (two goals, four assists) were modest again after a two-goal, three-assist sophomore season, but her prowess on defense was glaringly good.
She sported barrels of grit and determination on soccer pitches, thwarting rush after rush and initiating transition after transition. Her work rate was at a construction-workers-on-a-tight-deadline high. Gnats strive in vain to reach Fortier’s level in peskiness.
It’s not easy to get by a four-limbed wall.
“I like to get in a player’s way,” said Fortier, a Wilmette resident and a NSCD student since fourth grade. “I like to give it my all, in anything I do.
“That persistence I have when I compete … I got that from my parents [Steve and Susan]. They also taught me the right way to treat others, and they encouraged me to be myself at all times and stand up for what I believe.”
Steven and Susan, along with Julia and her siblings (University of Wisconsin education major Hannah and NSCD freshman Evan), teamed up to complete a 1,000-piece puzzle in the early stages of the pandemic. It took them about five days. The strewn pieces rested on the kitchen table.
“We’d walk by the table, stop, spend maybe 20 minutes on it,” said Julia, a First Team All-Stater in field hockey last fall and a National Field Hockey Coaches Association Scholar of Distinction honoree in 2018. “It was a puzzle of the world. Oceans, flowers, other things … it took a while, putting that together.”
Fortier has learned to play poker (Texas Hold’em, mainly, no monetary stakes involved) in between her e-learning sessions. She found a recipe for chocolate chip cookies and bakes batches fairly often. The reviews from her family? Nothing but raves.
“They like the texture of the cookies,” Fortier says.
Call it another victory for her. But she’d much rather help the Raiders gobble up soccer wins and gallop into another extended postseason run.
The pandemic has given Fortier plenty of time to reflect — and look ahead to Ivy League life in New Haven, Conn.
“I’m going to miss the smallness of North Shore Country Day,” says Fortier, a math/science whiz. “I loved connecting with students and teachers every day. I enjoyed dropping by a teacher’s office, or my college counselor’s office, and saying, ‘Hey.’
“I’m looking forward to the rigorous academics at Yale. The school’s located in a little town; it’s cool, as is Yale’s new field house. I’d visited the campus several times, for field hockey camps and clinics, before my official visit my junior year. I liked the vibe of the campus; I could see myself there.
“It all clicked for me.”
For her coach, Fortier — the Raider with the incalculable pain threshold — battled tirelessly and courageously. Every. Single. Match.
Fortier stood out after the final whistles, too, though not as blatantly as she did near a ball.
“She’s humble and grounded,” Giffen said.
North Shore Country Day career
By Bill McLean
Julia Fortier either got pushed or fell down in a field hockey game last fall. No need to get to the bottom of that now. But the two-sport North Shore Country Day School standout hit the turf hard, her right wrist striking terra firma first.
“The wrist hurt a decent amount,” recalled Fortier, a senior and defensive center-midfielder in field hockey and soccer. “My field hockey coach [Mullery Doar] asked, ‘Are you OK?’ I told her, ‘I’m fine.’ I did not want to come out of the game. I never want to come out of a game.”
Fortier stayed in the fray, iced the wrist afterward, saw a doctor and found out she had suffered a fractured wrist.
Her response?
A shrug.
“I learned to play with a removable cast,” she said.
Last spring, near the end of her junior soccer season, Fortier sustained a head injury in a playoff match. She was told she could continue to play for the eventual Class A state runnerup but could not use her noggin to hit a ball. Don’t head a soccer ball? That’s akin to a tennis player being ordered to refrain from thumping an overhead smash. She was tempted but grudgingly refrained.
In the winter of her sophomore year, Fortier hit a ski slope in Utah. The slope won, viciously. It gashed Fortier’s right shin, which became a temporary home to 14 stitches. Three weeks later, with some extra padding covering the shin, Fortier suited up for a game in a club field hockey tournament. Total games missed: 0.
“She is tough,” Raiders girls soccer coach Lizzy Giffen said of Fortier, a 2020 Chicagoland Soccer All-State Watch List selectee and a Yale University-bound field hockey player. “You cannot get Julia off the field.”
But this heartless pandemic kept Fortier — and her two-time reigning Class A state runnerup soccer teammates — from traversing any field this spring.
The Illinois High School Association (IHSA) Board of Directors conducted a video conference on April 21 and decided to cancel all IHSA spring state tournaments. Gov. J.B. Pritzker and the Illinois State Board of Education had announced that all Illinois high schools will complete the 2019-20 school term from home via e-learning amid COVID-19 concerns.
NSCD (16-4-0 in Class A last spring) was pushed up due to the IHSA success policy and would have faced Class AA foes in the postseason this spring. The Raiders were eager for the challenge. Instead they got a different kind of new normal.
“E-learning,” Fortier said, “is going pretty smoothly. But it’s been weird, not seeing my teammates and friends in the hallways at school. Not being able to play an organized sport this spring has been tough for a lot of us. I like to be busy; always have. I’ve exercised, organized closets at home and made lists of other tasks to do, but it’s not the kind of busy I want to experience each day.”
Fortier had a hand and foot in six Final Four seasons at NSCD — those two in soccer (2018, ’19) to go with state runnerup, third place and two fourth place finishes in field hockey (a one-class, club sport where 231-student North Shore Country Day went up against the likes of 3,962-student New Trier). It’s hard to produce a more decorated prep sports career than that.
“Julia is probably best known for what she did in field hockey, but she’s also a great soccer player,” Giffen said. “I’ve called her the unsung hero, because she is incredibly talented and hardworking, and she didn’t usually get the spotlight even though she was beyond impactful in every game.”
Fortier earned Second Team Independent School League (ISL) soccer honors in 2019. Her stats (two goals, four assists) were modest again after a two-goal, three-assist sophomore season, but her prowess on defense was glaringly good.
She sported barrels of grit and determination on soccer pitches, thwarting rush after rush and initiating transition after transition. Her work rate was at a construction-workers-on-a-tight-deadline high. Gnats strive in vain to reach Fortier’s level in peskiness.
It’s not easy to get by a four-limbed wall.
“I like to get in a player’s way,” said Fortier, a Wilmette resident and a NSCD student since fourth grade. “I like to give it my all, in anything I do.
“That persistence I have when I compete … I got that from my parents [Steve and Susan]. They also taught me the right way to treat others, and they encouraged me to be myself at all times and stand up for what I believe.”
Steven and Susan, along with Julia and her siblings (University of Wisconsin education major Hannah and NSCD freshman Evan), teamed up to complete a 1,000-piece puzzle in the early stages of the pandemic. It took them about five days. The strewn pieces rested on the kitchen table.
“We’d walk by the table, stop, spend maybe 20 minutes on it,” said Julia, a First Team All-Stater in field hockey last fall and a National Field Hockey Coaches Association Scholar of Distinction honoree in 2018. “It was a puzzle of the world. Oceans, flowers, other things … it took a while, putting that together.”
Fortier has learned to play poker (Texas Hold’em, mainly, no monetary stakes involved) in between her e-learning sessions. She found a recipe for chocolate chip cookies and bakes batches fairly often. The reviews from her family? Nothing but raves.
“They like the texture of the cookies,” Fortier says.
Call it another victory for her. But she’d much rather help the Raiders gobble up soccer wins and gallop into another extended postseason run.
The pandemic has given Fortier plenty of time to reflect — and look ahead to Ivy League life in New Haven, Conn.
“I’m going to miss the smallness of North Shore Country Day,” says Fortier, a math/science whiz. “I loved connecting with students and teachers every day. I enjoyed dropping by a teacher’s office, or my college counselor’s office, and saying, ‘Hey.’
“I’m looking forward to the rigorous academics at Yale. The school’s located in a little town; it’s cool, as is Yale’s new field house. I’d visited the campus several times, for field hockey camps and clinics, before my official visit my junior year. I liked the vibe of the campus; I could see myself there.
“It all clicked for me.”
For her coach, Fortier — the Raider with the incalculable pain threshold — battled tirelessly and courageously. Every. Single. Match.
Fortier stood out after the final whistles, too, though not as blatantly as she did near a ball.
“She’s humble and grounded,” Giffen said.