Sisters Adie and Evangeline Minnella make Villanova field hockey better simply by being together
Evangeline, a junior midfielder, spent two years at Villanova before her sister, Adie, joined the team this season. Being back together on the field has made it “so much more comfortable.”
After two years apart, sisters Adie and Evangeline Minnella finally rekindled their field hockey relationship at Villanova.
“It’s been awesome. [It] was weird not playing with her for two years,” said Adie, a freshman forward. “It was kind of like a missing limb, I felt very weird not having her behind me in the midfield. … So being back in that schedule and that habit of having her on the field with me feels so good and so much more comfortable and normal again.”
The sisters grew up playing together in their hometown, North Caldwell, N.J. Evangeline, a junior midfielder, has been on the Main Line for the past three seasons. Adie has made an immediate impact in her first year, with nine goals and 17 points.
They have helped the 10-7 Wildcats finish tied for third in the Big East. Villanova will face No. 1-seeded Connecticut, which is ranked third in the nation, on Friday at 1 p.m.
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Coach Joanie Milhous said the Minnella sisters are polar opposites on the field.
“Evie does it with her really sweet, calm demeanor and then Adie does it by her sparkly, fired-up demeanor,” Milhous said. “You look at one and they’re just so different, but the two of them add so much to all of our players and I love the balance of it. We all need that balance of the calm, but yet the crazy, intense fun.”
Milhous also has a personal connection with the Minnella family. She’s been friends with their mother, Jill Cosse, for more than two decades. Cosse was an All-American at The College of New Jersey and coached both her daughters at West Essex High School during a 25-year coaching career.
“Being friends with her for this long and then having her not just send one daughter to me, but both of her daughters, from my perspective, I’ve appreciated because a coach sending your daughter to another coach is a big deal,” Milhous said.
For Evangeline, who is in the midst of her best collegiate season, having her sister back has contributed to her success.
“When we play together, we have a sense of where each other are,” Evangeline said. “We work off each other really well, which it’s not really something that I had to learn with her. Sometimes, that connection comes over time with teammates, but I feel like right off the bat on the first day when she got here for preseason, it’s just super easy. If you’re in a drill together, we don’t even have to verbally communicate sometimes, it just comes so naturally, which I think that’s pretty special.”
The two shared a special moment in the Wildcats’ 3-1 win over Wagner on Oct. 25. Adie logged her ninth goal of the season, while Evangeline scored her first collegiate goal.
“We were at Wagner and we’re both from [North Jersey], so some of our family was able to come to the game,” Evangeline said, “which made it even more special. I’m always super proud of her and all the girls on our team, everyone just puts in so much effort to make those finishes happen.”
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Having two years away from one another allowed the two to grow individually. But both are glad to be back on the same team and in the same zip code.
“The two years apart were so weird, not having her at home and having to communicate with her through the phone and hearing about her life, not as like a personal thing and seeing it more through pictures,” Adie said. “[Now], we can meet on campus, go out to dinner, it’s so much more personal. I just love being around her and love having her in my corner and I love being in her corner as well.”
The Wildcats enter Friday as the No. 4 seed and look to advance to the Big East championship for the first time in 21 years.
“Our goal is to win a Big East championship, so we’re going to do everything we can to accomplish that,” Evangeline said.
