Another Red Raider Rejoins Fold: Bishop Takes Field Hockey Helm

HYANNIS – Barnstable High School hired former Red Raider three-sport star Ashley Bishop Wednesday afternoon as the successor for 12-year field hockey head coach Bess Doherty, making it the third alumni hired in as many weeks to take a head coaching position for the Red & White.

Barnstable High Class of 2003's Ashley Bishop was hired Wednesday afternoon as the school's new field hockey varsity head coach. Bishop played field hockey, basketball and softball for the Red Raiders. Photo courtesy of Ashley Bishop

Barnstable High Class of 2003’s Ashley Bishop was hired Wednesday afternoon as the school’s new field hockey varsity head coach. Bishop played field hockey, basketball and softball for the Red Raiders.
Photo courtesy of Ashley Bishop

Bishop, a class of 2003 graduate, joins new boys’ ice hockey head coach Tim Grace and new boys’ basketball head coach Mike Sullivan as the most recent hires by Barnstable High School athletic director Scott Thomas. Bishop actually went to school with Grace who also graduated with the class of 2003.

“I feel a great year coming ahead,” Bishop said Thursday afternoon. “I’m very excited. I love the school and the people there and it’s definitely the place I want to be.”

Bishop played varsity halfback for the Red Raiders under Sharon Hughes (2001-2002), earning a pair of varsity letters and she served as a co-captain her senior season.

“I actually just missed playing for Bess (Doherty),” Bishop said. ‘But I definitely have a defensive mindset.”

Doherty stepped down from her long tenure as field hockey head coach at Barnstable because she wants to devote more time to her new restaurant business in Harwich.

Bishop, currently a teaching assistant at Barnstable High but now a licensed English teacher, coached the Barnstable field hockey jayvees last fall and is currently coaching the Red Raider jayvee softball team. Two years ago she coached the freshmen field hockey team.

As a Red Raider, Bishop played varsity basketball under Nancy Freeman during Freeman’s first season at the helm in 2001-02 and she played varsity softball for two seasons under former longtime head coach Jen Police, who is back this season assisting Martha Deusser for the varsity squad.

Born in Boston, Bishop moved to Hyannis at the age of five and attended Hyannis East Elementary School, then matriculated to Barnstable Middle School and, of course, onto Barnstable High. She said now that she has been certified as an English teacher she hopes she can parlay that into a teaching position to go along with this new and admittedly “exciting” appointment.

“Right now my focus will be on coaching,” she said. “But there’s hope something might develop.”

Bishop went on to play four years of field hockey at DIII Assumption College in Worcester and she graduated in 2007 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and Communications.

She was a Cape Cod Times All-Cape & Islands selection in her junior year in softball.

Bishop will be the 10th woman to serve as field hockey head coach at Barnstable High School since the program’s inception in 1928. Her predecessor, Doherty, coached the Red Raiders to seven Old Colony League championship titles from 2003-20014 and finished with a record of 103-73-41, second only in all-time wins to hall of famer Kay Nehubian (1928-1970).

Doherty notched her 100th career win against Dartmouth on October 2, 2014.

— Sean Walsh is the sports editor for www.capecod.com. His email is [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @coachwalshccbm

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