Kenzley Goode just completed her junior season with the Cushing Academy girls hockey team. (Courtesy photo)

It was sometime in the fall a couple of years ago at Cushing Academy, the prep school in Ashburnham, Mass., that they first realized their common bond.

Each student had to say where they were from – and that’s how Ebuka Okorie and Kenzley Goode realized they were kindred spirits, both from Nashua.

“I heard her say she was from New Hampshire, Nashua, so that was pretty cool,” Okorie said.

“I said no way,” Goode said when she realized it.

Both are junior class athletes hoping to use the prep school experience to springboard them to a collegiate athletic future. The 6-foot-2 Okorie is Cushing’s point guard, while Goode is a standout on defense in ice hockey, and also a middle hitter in volleyball, the latter her secondary sport.

For any athlete it’s a change.

“Definitely a big change coming to a prep school from a public school,” Goode sadi. “It was hard leaving family and friends. But it’s the best decision I’ve ever made.”

That, she says, “is because of all the opportunites Cushing gives me with hockey, sports and academically.”

It wasn’t a big issue for her. Goode said as early as fifth grade that she might go the prep school rout, as it was suggested way back then by her club hockey coach. So she and her father started doing some research. Cushing was actually the first place they had explored.

As for Okorie, he enjoyed the selection process.

“After grade school I was just trying to find the best opportunity for me to be able to grow in basketball as a player,” Okorie said. “Going to a prep school was the best opportunity for me as a player.

“I think it really helped me develop my game, my basketball IQ, my skills in general.”

What’s the life like? It may be just a little more structured than college, but it’s more so than your local high school. As Goode said, a prep school like Cushing “kind of builds your day for you.”

“You get everything done, and mture a lot quicker,” she said. “You look at what you want for your future,and build everything around that.”

Okorie has adjusted to the structure. “It helps you stay disciplined and get your work done,” he said. “You have time to do your homework, work out, and also you have time to socialize with friends. So the structure is good.”

As for athletics, Goode noted that there is a big difference.

“They definitely expect more out of you,” she said. “That’s the reason why you’re there. It’s a big change, but for the better. Pushing you in the direction you want to go in the future.”

And most prep school athletes want to play college sports, so Goode feels “being around the atmosphere of everyone wanting the same dreams of you, that’s pretty amazing. It’s awesome. I love it.”

And thus there’s a lot of competition on teams, which is a big difference also from a high school, at least the majority. You have to fight for your position.

“Basically every practice like a tryout for the next game,” she said. “That’s how it works, and you go from there.”

Club hockey prepared Goode for what she’s doing now. She’s always had the dream of playing college hockey, and has always been a defenseman on the ice playing strictly with girls. But on some club teams she’s played with the boys and played center.Once she got to 12, and the boys started playing in leagues where checking is allowed, she played girls only hockey all the time.

What’s the level of play like?

“It’s a lot quicker than club hockey,” she said “But the hockey I do in the summer it’s the ‘showcase hockey’, so it’s the same group of girls, just all on different prep school teams.

“Coming into Cushing, I did know what the speed might be like, just going from games before at different prep schools. I knew what to expect.”

Still, it wasn’t easy.

“Freshman year was a hard year for me, I had never really played,” she said. “I went to Coach (Valerie Bono-Bunker), she told me what she expected of me. From that, sophomore year was better, and now I’m second line as a junior, so I’m headed in the right direction for next year.”

She remembers her first day of practice.

“Very, very, very nervous,” Goode said “I was shaking in my boots I was so nervous, but all the seniors and upperclassmen were there to support me. They all said, ‘We know you guys are nervous, but just have fun. Nerves were kind of out for the second practice but I was definitely shaking at the first one.”

How about the first game? Believe it or not, Goode was more concerned about the warmups – not the game.

“Going from a three minute warmup to an eight minute warmup, and trying to remember what to do,” she said, and then began to chuckle. “I was very stressed about that. I had a feeling I wasn’t going to play the first game, so I was preparing myself for warmups, mostly.”

She can chuckle about it now. Goode likes playing defense more, because playing as a forward with the boys, “I always felt like my head was on a swivel. On defense, the whole plays in front of me. And on defense, it’s more mental. It’s all smart plays, so I like that. I love defense.”

In her last seven games of the season, Goode had zero goals against, was a plus player (in the plus-minus stats) and Cushing went 6-1.

And she gets a chance to pinch up a bit, but Goode doesn’t play much on the power play. But she’d like to. “I think I’d be a good person on the point.”

Goode also has a secondary sport that helped her get to Cushing – volleyball, which she was a standout in at Fairgrounds Middle School. Don’t count out volleyball in her future.

“I love them both, but hockey I’ve been playing my whole life,” she said. “It’s a sport I’m more comfortable with. But in college I’m looking to do both.”

And Division III schools that she’s explored and have talked to are on board with that, she said. She’s had conversation with five schools already. She’d like to have a decision before the beginning of her senior year.

Goode likes the recruiting process. And she’s learned a lot about it being at Cushing. “It’s stressful, but it’s exciting,” she said. “But once recruited (and) I’m committed the stress is going to go away and now I just have something to look forward to.”

Goode said if she gets any Division I offers that would be strictly hockey, she might go for that and play volleyball at a club or recreational level. She started playing that sport in gym class but then began playing club volleyball in Nashua.

“Something I like about volleyball is the team (aspect), I think it’s very different than hockey,” she said. “It’s very close, it’s a very small team, so it’s very family-like.

She went in as a freshman, because of the early start looking at schools, but it is common for many to repeat a year. That wasn’t necessary in this case.

Okorie also didn’t repeat a year, and like Goode is a junior, and like Goode, has accustomed to the huge change in lifestyle.

“Freshman year was a big adjustment, having to plan out your whole day, get your work in in a short amount of time,” he said. “But living not too far, less than an hour away, has made it pretty easy. My parents can just drive up.”

Nashua’s Ebuka Okorie has seen his game develop as Cushing Academy’s point guard. (Photo courtesy of Cushing Academy).

Okorie feels his game has evolved, certainly from a couple of years ago. “When I first came in, I was the backup point guard, around 10 minutes a game to give the starter a breather,” Okorie said. “I’d learn all the plays, get a feel for what prep school basketball was like. I felt going into my sophomore year, and then I felt further developed into my junior year.”

To the point where he’s now the starter, and averaging about 15 points a year. Okorie has arrived, and now the recruiting process is starting all over, as colleges have begun to show up. “It’s a cool experience,” he said. “Right now I’m just enjoying the experience.”

Okorie says he’d might prefer to stay on the east coast for college, but to be honest, he’s open to anywhere. “A school that has a really good basketball program, and really good academics as well,” he said, adding he wants to study business or finance.

Okorie says he wants to improve his overall game, agility, etc. When he was a freshman, he was one of the smallest players on the Cushing team. Not any more. “I had to get used to the pace, the physicality,” he said.

He’s learning a lot about the game from Cushing head coach Mike DeFlaun. “He’s coached us hard since I got there,” Okorie said. “He’s really genuine, he’ll say it how it is. He’s taught me a lot of basketball and life lessons.”

Okorie, of course, has been through the recruitment process before in determining what prep school to attend.

“As I got to know the coaching staffs and the players, if they were interested it was more like mutual recruitment,” he said. Both are certainly enjoying the experience, and the close-knit culture of the prep school life.

“Everyone knows each other and is really supportive,” Goode said. “If I go to a game, I know everybody on the court, on the ice or on the field. Super supportive about everything. We all know each other, and it’s like a big family.”