Athlete of the Year finalist: Hard-working Ally Mulholland leaves behind winning legacy at Manheim Township
Athlete of the Year finalist: Hard-working Ally Mulholland leaves behind winning legacy at Manheim Township
Manheim Twp.’s Ally Mullholland, Athlete of the Year finalist on Friday June 6, 2025.
How one views Ally Mulholland depends on where one encounters her.
Her opponents, teammates and coaches see a gladiator on the field; an athlete who will push herself to the limits for her team’s success. A competitor unlike any other.
One who plays her sports in the purest of fashions.
Off the field, you’ll meet a people person; a kind, genuine, thoughtful girl who loves horror movies, mystery books and meeting new people.
Well, that’s assuming they aren’t her opponents on the field.
Mulholland, a recent Manheim Township grad, was a standout soccer midfielder and lacrosse defender for the Blue Streaks and is one of five girls named as a finalist for the 2024-25 LNP LancasterOnline.com Athlete of the Year award.
Growing up, Mulholland was an active kid. She tinkered with just about every sport under the sun.
“She liked to be really busy,” said Jane Mulholland, Ally’s mother.
Ally danced for nine years and tried basketball, field hockey, track and field and even ice hockey.
Mulholland knew soccer was her primary sport relatively early. She started playing when she was 5 with her brother, Tyler.
“My brother played soccer so I kind of just grew up with it,” Mulholland said.
“It was always constant and something I was doing. I kind of just knew that’s what I was trying to do all along.”
Manheim Twp.’s Ally Mulholland (9) brings the ball downfield against Conestoga during first-half action of a PIAA class 4A girls soccer first round game at Manheim Twp.’s Gene Kruis Field on Tuesday Nov. 5, 2024.
Developing ability
Ultimately, Mulholland became a midfield maestro for the Blue Streaks.
She’s dynamic. Her speed with the ball makes her a perfect wide midfielder, while her motor makes her the ideal box-to-box midfielder.
“Ally has always been a hardworking player,” said Manheim Township soccer coach Clayton Suydam. “She pushes herself harder for the team.”
Mulholland is an intelligent player who embraces new concepts and tactics.
“Her tactical ability will be appreciated at the next level almost more than her technical ability,” Suydam said.
Mulholland has been described as selfless, someone who doesn’t need the spotlight and is willing to do anything and everything for her team to succeed.
“She has really influenced our culture,” Suydam said. “Her success is a byproduct of doing the right things over and over again.”
She scored five goals and had 11 assists last fall, helping Manheim Township win the Lancaster-Lebanon League and District Three Class 4A titles.
Mulholland was voted a Section One second-team all-star her senior year.
She was All-State, all-league and a Section One first-team all-star and the Section One MVP as a junior.
Mulholland was a captain of a team that won the L-L League title three years in a row, along with two District Three titles.
“Obviously, the league titles and district titles are fun,” Mulholland said.
But it’s the earlier, more intimate memories of her soccer career that really stick in her mind.
“When I was younger, my club team won our little state cup thing,” Mulholland said with a smile.
“I like pictures from it because we’re all really little but we’re jumping for joy. That’s a moment I think back on because it was just so much fun.”
Bryant University in Smithfield, Rhoad Island, is her next destination.
She will play Division I soccer for the Bulldogs in the America East Conference and study to become a physical therapist.
Mulholland’s parents never had a grand scheme for her to play in college. If she did, it was by her own desire.
“I didn’t care if she played in college,” Jane Mulholland said. “I just wanted the journey that comes with playing sports for her.”
Her daughter’s “fun” sport is lacrosse. She just happens to be an elite defender.
“I love that sport,” Mulholland said. “But I always saw it more as something I can do that I really enjoy, something that I can just have fun with all of my friends.”
She started her lacrosse career in fifth grade. Her mother had played the sport at the college level at Villanova and encouraged Mulholland to try it out.
“I was very nervous,” Mulholland said about trying the sport for the first time.
Fast forward to her senior year, and Mulholland is one of the best at her position in the state.
She was voted a Section One first-team all-star for the second straight season and was a crucial cog in the Blue Streaks’ defense.
“One-hundred percent, Ally is a competitor on the field,” said Manheim Township lacrosse coach Coleen Parmer. “She gets after it.”
While lacrosse is more of her leisure sport, there is a lot of pressure that comes with playing it at Manheim Township.
The expectation is to be one of the last two teams standing in the state year after year. Mulholland relishes that pressure.
“The pressure is the reward for winning,” Mulholland said. “If there was no pressure, it would be boring.”
One of the biggest compliments given to Mulholland is her ability to elevate the play of those around her.
“She has a real positive effect on others,” Parmer said. “She puts the group before her personal accolades.”
Parmer’s favorite memory of Mulholland is when she gets into the offensive end.
As a soccer midfielder, it isn’t uncharted territory to her like it may be for other defenders.
Ally Mulholland (25) of Manheim Township gets set to shoot and score against Hempfield in District 3 Class 3A lacrosse semifinal action at Manheim Township High School’s Gene Kruis Field at War Memorial Stadium in Lancaster on Thursday, May 22, 2025.
Mulholand scored eight goals, leading all L-L defenders, and had an assist this spring.
Parmer’s favorite Mulholland moment from Manheim Township’s recent playoff run is when she scored in the PIAA quarterfinals at Penn State’s Panzer Stadium.
“She came to the sideline, and it didn’t hit her right away that she had scored,” Parmer said. “She then realized what she did and was excited.”
Parmer said that Mulholland’s willingness to get after it, no matter what it is, is a trait that will make her successful not only in college athletically, but also academically and in life.
“She goes after it, doesn’t matter what sport or activity,” Parmer said. “She goes after it in life.”
The heartbreaking double-overtime loss in 2024’s PIAA semifinals is the moment that sticks in Mulholland’s mind about her lacrosse career.
Not just because Mulholland and the Blue Streaks fell short of their goal after being ever-so close, but because it marked the end of practices, bus rides and time with teammates for another season.
“It’s kind of a sad one,” Mulholland said on a memory that still stings more than a year later. “I remember the next day, I was at Journey Field, playing soccer or something, and I remember being sad that I wasn’t going there for lacrosse practice.”
Flipping a switch
“Off the field, I really love people and meeting new people,” Mulholland said.
Mulholland is a social butterfly. She loves to spend time with her friends and meet new people.
In her rare free time, Mulholland is a film buff, with horror movies being her genre of choice.
“We’ll have horror movie nights,” Mulholland said. “We’ll watch horror movies and then we always finish with a funny one before we go to bed so we don’t get scared while sleeping.”
Mulholland is also a known bookworm. She said she likes to read the horror genre as much as she likes to watch it and loves a great mystery novel.
It makes it ironic that the classic novel “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” falls under the “horror” genre, because the two sides of Mulholland, on and off the turf, couldn’t be more different.
“Once I’m in an actual game, I am just so focused,” Mulholland said.
“I want to do everything I can to win, because I’m a really competitive person. Once I’m out there, I’m in a zone.”
Mulholland enters a different stratosphere when her cleats touch the turf.
Her focus is doing whatever is necessary to help her team succeed.
There have been instances where Mulholland doesn’t even recognize fatigue until she’s on the sideline.
“When I think about her in games, it’s the moments we pull her off and she pulls herself out of the locked-in state,” said Suydam. “She’s very locked into the moment.”
As for the source of her competitiveness, one can track it back to being the youngest sibling.
“She played soccer with her brother and his friends, and he showed her no mercy,” Jane Mulholland said.
“She was expected to keep up.”
Once her mother saw her ability to compete with boys two or three years older than her, she knew that her daughter would be a great athlete.
Jane Mulholland was a bit concerned when she first saw the fiery competitiveness bursting out of her daughter.
“I was a bit nervous early on,” Jane Mulholland said. “But she’s learned to contain it. She knows the line, but she doesn’t let anyone push her around.”
Ally’s drive refuses to turn off for anything even semi-competitive.
“The everyone loves her thing kind of goes away during family game night,” Jane Mulholland said with a laugh.
No ‘I’ in team
Dan Mulholland’s favorite part of watching his daughter play is how joyful she is on the field.
“It’s the little celebrations that you can see,” Dan Mulholland said.
“If she scores or one of her teammates scores, you can see a genuine smile on her face. It’s seeing the hard work pay off.”
Mulholland’s strongest athletic attribute is her lightning-quick speed.
The Manheim Township track and field team wanted her desperately.
While she gave it a fair shake, it wasn’t for her.
Mulholland didn’t enjoy the individual events. She missed the team component, a nucleus of people working together for one common goal.
“I think she liked the relays,” her father said. “But she always enjoyed the team aspect and being part of a team.”
She is one of the best athletes on any given field she touches, but it’s how she treats her teammates and her team-first mentality that makes Mulholland so special.
Her legacy at Manheim Township will be her willingness to put the team on her back and do what others may not want to do if it means the team succeeds.
She’ll be remembered as a model of what a Blue Streak should be.
Mulholland shaped the culture of the teams she was on.
Her relentless drive to better the team, along with the smile and joy she played with, will be an impossible void to fill.
