Welcome to Meet the Captains, the Women's Ice Hockey Edition. Let's learn more about the 2025-26 captains: Gia Santorello, Noelle Woodward and Charlotte Labre
 
Gia Santorello – Senior Defenseman from Massapequa Park, N.Y.
 
Q: How long have you been playing your sport?
A: I've been playing ice hockey for 14 years.
 
Q: What is your best memory playing your sport before Neumann?
A: My best memory playing my sport before Neumann was scoring the game winning goal in the championship game.
 
Q: What does it mean to you to be named Captain?
A: To be named captain means a lot to me knowing that I have the support from my coaches, teammates, and friends.
 
Q: What is your major and why?
A: My major is physical therapy. I chose this major because I enjoy helping others especially athletes and I enjoy science.
 
Q: What is your dream job after graduating?
A: My dream job is to have my own clinic where I can help athletes recover from injuries and/or help prevent them from occurring.
 
Q: What is your advice to the student-athletes just starting their collegiate career?
A: Stay true to yourself, continue to work hard, and that it's ok to ask for help.
 
 
Noelle Woodard – Junior Goalie from Post Falls, Idaho
 
Q: How long have you been playing your sport?
A: I started playing hockey a bit later than most, starting around 6th grade, following in the footsteps of all my older siblings and I immediately fell in love with the thrill of the game. I would bounce back and forth between my co-ed and female teams playing goalie for the girls and winger for the boys for a couple of years before I decided goalie was where my heart was. So now I've been playing for the past 10 years!
 
Q: What is your best memory playing your sport before Neumann?
A: There are so many memories I could choose, from loading the car with all my siblings and traveling for all our tournaments to getting my first ever shut out, but I'd have to go with making it to Nationals my senior year with Team Idaho. It was great competition, a great place (Irvine, CA), and great teammates to spend my last youth hockey games with, and I'm forever grateful for that experience.
 
Q: What does it mean to you to be named Captain?
A: To be named captain means a great deal to me. There are a plethora of responsibilities that come with being a captain, and thankfully, I have had so many incredible past leaders to look up to during my time here that I am honored to be one now. It means that I have the respect from my teammates and my coaches to be the best role model and leader I can be for this team, and it pushes me to do better every single day. It means I get to represent Neumann women's ice hockey proudly.
 
Q: What is your major and why?
A: I'm majoring in pre-physical therapy with a minor in strength and conditioning. For the longest time I've always enjoyed learning about bones, muscles, and bettering the body; and with this career I can also pursue my passion for helping individuals be and perform the best they can while recovering to their best potential.
 
Q: What is your dream job after graduating?
A: My dream job is to have a job I love, where I go to work and it doesn't feel like I'm at work at all. For me, that would be a travel sports physical therapist, where I can work with rehabbing athletes at the same time as getting to travel and experience different locations.
 
Q: What is your advice to the student-athletes just starting their collegiate career?
A: There are a few things that come to mind, but over everything else at the end of the day you have to remember that your human. You're gonna make mistakes, you might not get the results that you want all the time, and it's not always gonna be perfect. But first you have to dig deep, trust the process, and appreciate how far you've come. Live in the moment and take it all in while you're in it because it truly does go by in a flash and before you know it, it's your last season. Not everyone gets to have the experiences we do and the family you make along the way, so just remember it's about the journey not the destination.
 
Charlotte Labre – Senior Forward from Bel Air, Md.
 
Q: How long have you been playing your sport?
A: I have been playing hockey for 17 years now because I started when I was four. I'm 21 now.
 
Q: What is your best memory playing your sport before Neumann?
A: My best memory of hockey before Neuman would be 2021, 16-U Nationals. I played for the Little Flyers. We were in semifinals in overtime, and I scored the game-winning goal to send us to the national championship game. That's definitely my best memory. It was surreal.
 
Q: What does it mean to you to be named Captain?
A: Being named captain is an honor, and it means that you're able to serve your team and lead your team, no matter what the scoreboard says, and you're able to lead by example, letting your actions do the talking.
 
Q: What is your major and why?
A: My major is sport management, and I chose this because I knew very early on that I would always want to stay in the rink and be involved in the team atmosphere. That is why I'm sport management.
 
Q: What is your dream job after graduating?
A: My dream job would to be to play professional hockey, but if that doesn't happen, just a dream, I want to coach women's college hockey. That would be perfect.
 
Q: What is your advice to the student-athletes just starting their collegiate career?
A: Biggest thing I can say to athletes just starting their college career is things aren't going to go your way right away and you can't let that knock you down. You have to take that and you have to turn it into motivation. You have to control what you can control because if you stress about the things that are out of your control, it's not good. So, you just have to keep pushing and no matter what happens you can't give up because one day you're gonna make that lineup, you're gonna get third line, second line, first line, you're gonna work your way up and it will get better but you can't stop pushing.