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Hattie Madden stopped running for a second to catch her breath, the sun beating down on Maryland’s bright green turf below her.

Hattie was in College Park with her twin, Bo Madden. It was her first collegiate appearance for Syracuse’s field hockey team, an August 2023 scrimmage against Maryland. As she was hunched over, her new teammate, Willemijn Boogert, ran up to her.

“I don’t give a f*ck if you’re tired,” Boogert told her. “You need to start running.”

Hattie took Boogert’s words to heart. Instead of hanging her head, she embraced the moment, saying she fell in love with the tempo of the college game.

At every level of field hockey they’ve played, Hattie and Bo have overcome hurdles, forging their own path from England to Syracuse. Now in their junior seasons with the Orange, it’s that perseverance which has helped the twins and the team thrive. Hattie is tied for second on SU with four goals this season, while Bo’s midfield work has helped anchor a Syracuse defense that allows less than a goal per game.

“What they do on the pitch kind of speaks for itself,” Nick Davey, Hattie and Bo’s county and school coach in England, said. “It’s definitely been challenging for them as well. They’ve had injuries, they’ve had various states. They’ll just get up and they’ll just keep going.”

The Madden twins have become crucial to the Orange’s early success this season. Syracuse’s most recent game is a perfect example. The Orange, now ranked No. 5 in the country, stunned then-No. 13 Ohio State in a 2-1 double overtime win.

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In double overtime, Hattie tipped a pass to herself behind the Buckeye defense and fired home the game-winning goal. Bo’s defensive work in the fourth period and overtime shut down OSU’s Makenna Webster, who entered with 10 goals but couldn’t get a shot off with Bo marking her.

“Those two will go after something greater,” SU head coach Lynn Farquhar said. “They will dive. They will run through a wall for you, for Syracuse, and for their unit.”

But watching the Madden twins succeed is nothing new for Farquhar.

Two years before Hattie and Bo were leading Syracuse to victory, they were captaining the field hockey team at the Sedbergh School in England. The two were named 2023 Co-Sportswomen of the Year at Sedbergh, capping off stellar high school careers after guiding it to a U16 national championship in 2021.

Farquhar — then the St. Joseph’s head coach — started watching their highlights at Sedbergh. As soon as she started recruiting them, it was an instant connection and the twins quickly committed.

“I didn’t need any convincing,” Farquhar said. “I think some programs might have been recruiting one over the other. I knew I wanted both right away.”

The connection was so strong that when Farquhar left St. Joseph’s for Syracuse in February 2023, Hattie and Bo eventually followed her. They didn’t even know what Syracuse looked like until they landed from England. But Farquhar was the reason they chose SJU.

“We knew we wanted to compete at a high level,” Bo said. “We knew Lynn was the coach that would get us there. When we knew that she was coming here, we were just hoping that she’d pick us up, and she did.”

The twins had to leave behind their family in England, who introduced them to field hockey as soon as they could pick up a stick.

That started when they tagged along to their older sister, Ellie’s, three-hour clinics on Sundays at 5 years old. The twins didn’t love it right away.

“It was cold, raining and wet,” Hattie said. “She’d send us for three hours just to burn energy.”

But those long hours at the clinic helped them develop past the beginner group faster than peers their age. As they grew older and spent more time at the clinic, the twins advanced to the mixed section, which included both boys and girls.

Despite occasionally facing grown men during games, the two held their own. Their mother, Jo, said it helped Hattie and Bo become “really tough,” since the boys played at a faster pace. While the twins originally ran cross country and tried netball, they started to shift their priority to field hockey.

Jo first realized Hattie and Bo had a future in field hockey during a parents’ meeting with the twins’ sports teachers. During the meeting, their teachers told her they would be successful in “whatever sport they pick.” When Jo left it up to Hattie and Bo to decide which sport to focus on, they went with their “first love.”

“Hockey is the one thing that always was the primary sport that they wanted to play. It was their choice, very much,” Jo said.

Hattie and Bo Madden, from left to right, getting ready to represent their county at 11 years old. The twins often played up an age division and didn’t play in their age group until they were 16. Courtesy of Jo Madden.

The twins’ games took off once they started to focus fully on field hockey. At the age of 12, they were selected to play for their county, Lancashire, where they played with 13 and 14-year-olds. Nick Davey, the county coach for Lancashire at the time, was impressed by Hattie and Bo’s connection.

“They have that ability just to link so well together,” Davey said. “If you played them close to each other on the pitch, you don’t have two players, you have three.”

Davey continued to coach the twins at Sedbergh, and they continued to excel against older competition. At 16, the twins played against competition their age for the first time since their early days at the clinic.

During a national semifinals game, Sedbergh faced off against a team with three girls who Davey said were supposed to dominate it.

It didn’t matter. Davey said Hattie and Bo were still the best two players on the pitch.

“They always would step up to that next level,” Davey said. “They were matching anybody else on the field.”

When Hattie and Bo eventually moved to Syracuse and the United States, it wasn’t initially a smooth transition. Jo said it was “really hard emotionally” to watch the two leave, and it was a bit of a culture shock for them.

Hattie and Bo were given “hairties” when they asked for “bobbles.” They put in “mouth guards” instead of “gum shields” and played in “scrimmages,” not “friendlies.”

Those culture shocks were the least of their worries. A few days after Hattie notched her first assist for the Orange on Sept. 24, 2023 against Penn State, her appendix burst, requiring her to have emergency surgery. While Hattie watched from the hospital, Bo dejectedly played without her twin for the first time.

“That was the first time I just stepped on a hockey pitch without her,” Bo said. “Being so far away from home, knowing that she was going through surgery and having to just get on with it and play, was tough.”

When Hattie woke up from the surgery, the first thing she did was turn Syracuse’s game on. Bo missed her sister’s presence on the sideline and was quiet without her.

Once Hattie got healthy, the separation brought the twins even closer. During practices, the two paired up during drills so often that Farquhar had to single them out, asking them to switch partners.

Their bond grew stronger after their first year at Syracuse. Bo, while wrapping up Hattie in a big hug, said they lived apart their freshman year to be “their own people” but were roommates again last year and have been since.

Hattie agreed, saying her connection with Bo fuels them on the pitch.

“Stepping out there with Bo, it’s just such a nice feeling,” Hattie said. “It’s like a comfort blanket.”

With Hattie and Bo bringing their own skillsets to the table, Syracuse has evolved into one of the best teams in the country in 2025. In SU’s season opener against Lock Haven, Bo assisted Hattie for the two’s first link-up in their Syracuse careers.

“When Hattie scores, it feels like I score,” Bo said.

While Hattie and Bo have helped lead the Orange to an early undefeated start to the season, they aren’t satisfied. Their goal is to make the Final Four with Syracuse.

“I don’t think I would be who I am, and I don’t think I would even be playing this far if I didn’t have a twin,” Bo said. “I wouldn’t be in America if I didn’t have a twin.”

Published on September 9, 2025 at 11:35 pm
Contact Henry: hdaley@syr.edu