She recorded more points in a two-season run than anyone in program history and has been committed to play at Northwestern, the defending NCAA champions and a perennial powerhouse, since 2022. But here she is, in the late stages of another Falcons’ blowout win, racing after a loose groundball.
Her hustle changed little but the winning margin in Good Counsel’s 16-goal bludgeoning of Bishop Ireton on April 19. The win improved the Falcons to 16-0, a record that reveals part of Rudolph’s lingering chase: Her team is trying to notch the program’s first undefeated season. But her motivations go beyond those numbers.
“I love playing with the girls on my team and they never fail to make the sport exciting,” Rudolph said. “And I think that’s why I love it. I mean, I still get nervous before every game and everybody still gets excited after every goal. So I don’t think it’ll ever get boring.”
The Ireton win, under gray skies and spotty rain, tested that approach. Rudolph scored the game’s first two tallies as the Falcons went up 4-0. Ireton, looking for an upset, responded with a five-goal run.
Falcons’ sophomore attacker Annabelle Walsh tied the game and Rudolph followed with two more goals. She barely celebrated after the first — instead, she gingerly held her mouth, which had been whacked by a stick. The Falcons went to halftime holding a tenuous two-goal cushion.
Rudolph stood behind Coach Michael Haight in the Good Counsel huddle. Her face shifted with Haight’s words, bearing the mask of a steely, solemn competitor while the coach outlined his team’s first-half issues but softening into a smile when he later implored them to enjoy themselves.
“If somebody is going to look at me in the huddle, they’re going to know I’m paying attention, that I value what Coach Haight is saying,” said Rudolph afterward, nursing a bruised lip. “But then at the end, he always reminds us that this is a game that we love … So I just smile to be able to make everyone else remember that too.”
That’s a dominant personality trait for Rudolph. Her mother, Andrea, calls her “my little glowbug.”
“She’s always smiling,” Andrea said. “There’s always that inner light to be on whether you’re having a good day or bad day.”
That joy coexists with a fierce competitiveness that started in the family.
Her sister, Madeleine, was a senior on the Falcons’ 2022 WCAC title team and has long been Rudolph’s mentor and motivator.
When Rudolph was about 3, the family vacationed in Long Beach Island, N.J. Madeleine knew how to surf. Hannah, wanting to be like her older sister, demanded to learn. Even those low tides and placid waves remained a formidable foe for the toddler, sending her repeatedly crashing into the surf.
Resolute, she picked herself up, shaking out the sand out each time.
“She wouldn’t let you touch her … I could hold the back of the board, but she had to really do it herself,” Andrea said.
When Hannah eventually mastered the frothy swell, rolling into shore with her arms up in the air, her glow returned.
“You couldn’t take the smile on her face for the rest of the day,” Andrea said.
That smile was evident as Good Counsel erupted against Ireton, scoring 13 unanswered goals. She finished with a team-high seven goals.
“When Hannah wants a score … there’s a fire in her eyes. She lights up, she asks for the ball … it’s not selfish or anything,” Walsh said. “It’s just something within her that drives her spirit to be better, better than everyone else, rise above the standard.”
Walsh developed into Rudolph’s offensive partner midway through last season, filling the void left after Madeleine’s graduation. The pair’s breakthrough came in a win over Severna Park, the eventual Maryland 3A state champions. Before the game, Rudolph pulled Walsh aside.
“She grabbed my shoulders and was just like, ‘Hey, you got this. And I know that you’re here for a reason,’” Walsh recalled. “That coming from her just lit something up inside of me to want to be as good as her and do what she’s been doing … Her words just spoke so much to me.”
Walsh, then a freshman, went on to score three goals in a two-goal win. She finished the year with 49 tallies, a Good Counsel freshman record.
Rudolph might have set that record if her freshman season wasn’t canceled due to the pandemic. She scored 85 goals in her first high school season as a sophomore, finishing with six in the 2022 WCAC championship. She took a week off to let herself feel the joy from the title and the sorrow for departing seniors.
But one day into her break, Rudolph laid in bed imagining the trophy ceremony and the celebration. A nagging desire to repeat crept in.
“It’s never enough,” Good Counsel senior defender Hailey Huebner said. “There’s no limit to what she wants to be. She doesn’t care if no one else is even close to her. She still wants to be better.”
Although Rudolph can seem impenetrable — “there’s never been a time where I was like, ‘Hannah’s having an off day,’” Huebner said — she has pushed through setbacks.
Rudolph didn’t receive a callback after trying out for the U.S. under-16 national development team in 2021. She was disappointed, Andrea said, but used it along with detailed feedback to improve. A year later, Rudolph’s parents asked her if she wanted to try out for the under-18 squad. She did, and made it.
She faced another choice last summer: try out again for the under-18 team or shoot for the under-20 team. The latter path would pit her against college players.
Over three intense July days in Sparks, Md., Rudolph’s head spun as she faced off with nearly 100 of the nation’s best. She left the tryouts with a torrent of learning moments but also a spot on the training team after the cut to 42, just one of five returning high-schoolers who remained. She is waiting to find out whether she make the final roster that will compete in the 2024 World Lacrosse Women’s under-20 Championship.
Until then, she will continue writing the final act of a storied career. Rudolph is in fervent pursuit of an undefeated season and three-peat, the next accomplishments in her constant chase for more.