Unbreakable Bonds

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Hannah McLaughlin was home enjoying a brief summer sojourn a few years ago when her younger sister called to ask an urgent favor. Mary Beth McLaughlin had ordered a package to be delivered to the family’s house that afternoon. A frequent enough online shopper that she feared incurring her parents’ ire if they saw yet another delivery, Mary Beth alerted her sister that the item would come—addressed to Hannah.

That’s the thing about a good back line. They know how to communicate. And how to cover for each other when a mistake risks disastrous ramifications. Or at least another lecture.

These days, senior Hannah, a First-Team All-SEC honoree, and sophomore Mary Beth, who earned a place on the SEC All-Freshman team in her debut campaign, are cornerstones of a defense that will feature several new faces in 2025. Along with goalkeeper and postseason hero Sara Wojdelko, they seek to uphold a tradition of stinginess that has propelled Vanderbilt to SEC championships and, for the first time a year ago, the NCAA Tournament Sweet 16. As sisters, the McLaughlins bring a lifetime of experience to the challenge.

SEC opponents can do all the video analysis they want this season. When it comes to the successful partnership at the heart of Vanderbilt’s back line, the tape only scratches the surface. While each is strong, athletic and fearless in her own right, the McLaughlins are better together. Better because an older sister inspired a younger sister to compete. Better because a younger sister decided that following in her older sister’s footsteps still left space to blaze her own trail. Better because few forces are as strong as the bonds of sisterhood. They are a blueprint for how to play not only with but for those around you.

“Being able to play with your sister is super special, and I don’t ever want to lose sight of that,” Hannah said. “It would be amazing if we potentially get to play together in a few years [in professional soccer], but this season right now could be the last time we have that chance. Looking back on it, I don’t want to forget how special it is to be able to play next to Mary Beth because she’s my best friend, she’s my sister. She’s awesome.”

Two Roads Lead to Nashville

It’s no surprise that Hannah and Mary Beth ended up playing something. The McLaughlins, including an older brother and younger sister, are an athletic and competitive bunch. Both parents played college sports, their dad football and baseball at Furman and their mom basketball at West Virginia’s Bethany College before competing in elite-level triathlons.

Once Hannah settled on soccer, it was almost inevitable that Mary Beth would follow. They were always a team, initially united in that mostly, good-natured sibling way against their older brother. When the sisters clashed, it usually came down, on some level, to just how much Mary Beth wanted to emulate her older sister. For while imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, a kick in the shin is painfully genuine in its own right.

“Even to this day, the majority of our fights are from soccer, when we train together and we do 1-v-1s,” Mary Beth said before pausing and adding a caveat. “Or over sharing clothes.”

As close as they were, Hannah and Mary Beth didn’t play on the same team in an advanced competitive setting until they were a senior and sophomore in high school, respectively, when Hannah switched from a nearby private school to the large new public high school that Mary Beth attended. By then, Hannah had long since committed to Vanderbilt.

Beginning to weigh her own options to play collegiately, Mary Beth had only one rule: not Vanderbilt. She loved her sister, but on the soccer field, she was always Hannah’s younger sister. She wanted to go her own way. Intrigued by what she saw when she visited several schools, she nonetheless decided to accompany her family to visit Hannah at Vanderbilt, some part of her still curious about that path.

As you’ve guessed by now, she loved it. She loved the team, coaches, campus and city. It felt like family, and not just in the one instance in which it literally was. And if Vanderbilt wanted her, well, she must be doing a pretty good job at being her own person anyway.

“Once she came and saw it for herself, obviously, I was really trying to get her to come—I was trying to help the coaches recruit her,” Hannah said. “After that trip, I had a feeling she was going to end up coming because she loved it, which I was really thankful for because it’s a blast being able to play with your sister.”

That isn’t to say peace and harmony reigned at all times, any more than in those backyard training sessions of yesteryear. They occasionally bickered as Mary Beth arrived on campus and flooded Hannah with questions about what to do and expect, the older sister telling the younger that she needed to figure things out for herself. Usually, of course, Hannah relented and did all she could to smooth the way—and not just on those occasions she received a call from their mom, reminding her she needed to look out for Mary Beth. She did it because it was her best friend.

“I couldn’t be happier that I chose to go to Vandy because it has been so beneficial in so many ways that Hannah’s here,” Mary Beth said. “My fear when I was younger was not being able to make my own way and have my own journey, but I feel like I’ve done a good job doing that—to the point that people have even been surprised to find out we’re sisters.”

Mary Beth McLaughin was selected to the 2024 SEC All-Freshman Team (Truman McDaniel/Vanderbilt Athletics)

Bonds Unite a Back Line

In what will always be a slightly unfortunate quirk of family history, Mary Beth’s first collegiate appearance and start came at Hannah’s expense. Mary Beth came on as a substitute for Hannah when the latter was injured in the season opener at Georgetown last year and took her place in the starting lineup the following game when Hannah was unable to return right away. Fortunately, for the sisters and Vanderbilt’s season, most of the rest of their time on the field came together.

Mostly a midfielder growing up—she even scored 39 goals in the high school season she played with her younger sister—Hannah moved to center back ahead of her second year at Vanderbilt. With the exception of the aforementioned games she missed with injury, she’s been omnipresent ever since. She played more than 3,100 minutes across the 2023-24 seasons, starting all 37 of her appearances. After earning Second-Team All-SEC honors as a sophomore, she took home first-team conference honors last year.

When Hannah moved to the back line, Mary Beth, for once, had the experience edge on her older sister. She’s been a defender much longer, recruited for her ability to play both center and outside back. A year ago, with Hannah in the middle of a three-back back line, Mary Beth often provided crucial depth behind since-departed graduate students Jessica Hinton and Alex Wagner on either side. Now, much as her sister did in her second season, Mary Beth is likely to step into an even more expanded starting role anchoring the back line.

Ambrose’s teams have always relied on strong possession instincts backstopped by uncompromising defensive standards—he’s overseen two of the three stingiest seasons in program history and the Commodores regularly rank near the top of SEC defensive stats.

“For us, all spring, all fall, we’re working to be the toughest, fittest, and most prepared team,” Hannah said. “Playing defense, you don’t always get as much credit. But as a back line, one of the words that really expresses our core values is relentless. It’s go, go, go—you fall, you get back up. You’re giving it your all.”

There is no room in that model for people working at cross purposes, letting inevitable training ground tension or bringing off-field disagreements onto the field. A team, and especially a back line, needs to behave like, well, sisters.

“Having such close siblings makes it so much easier to get in a fight and then look at each other 10 minutes later and laugh about it,” Mary Beth said. “So it feels natural to not hold a grudge—I feel awful if I hold a grudge. I always want to be like ‘No, let’s figure this out immediately.”

Without Hinton and Wagner, without All-American defensive midfielder Abi Brighton and Kate Devine’s calming presence splitting minutes in goal, the Commodores will look different this season when it comes to shutting down traffic headed toward their goal. But they don’t merely have an All-SEC and potential All-American center back to build around. They don’t merely have a promising sophomore coming off Freshman All-SEC honors. They have a blueprint. Whether they end up playing next to each other again or in some other configuration, Hannah and Mary Beth are what it looks like when people support—and challenge—each other to be their best.

“From a young age, since we’re always together, we understand the dynamic—it’s okay to be competitive and get on each other,” Hannah said. “But you have to leave that on the field. That’s something that I definitely think helped me, growing up with Mary Beth and all my siblings. To this day, we’ve definitely both benefitted from that with our teammates. Because all the girls on our team, they’re also like our sisters. We’re with them every day. We basically live in the locker room with them. So it really is a similar dynamic.”

All-SEC First-Team honoree Hannah McLaughlin was ranked No. 46 in TopDrawer’s Preseason Top 100 Players (Sam Jordan/Vanderbilt Athletics)

The Season of a Lifetime Awaits

Though far from twins, there are obvious similarities between the sisters. As Hannah jokes, they were raised by the same people, after all. The shared traits are perhaps never more apparent than on the field, where both are tall, strong and aggressive center backs. Watch them for a few minutes and many people might be able to guess, or at least suspect, they are related. But it’s when an opponent goes in just a little too hard into a tackle, or just as likely, complains just a little too loudly about one of their tackles that all doubt is removed.

“We both get really protective of each other on the field, which is kind of funny—we’re similar in that way,” Hannah said. “But I would say Mary Beth does have more of a fiery side when it comes to getting back at people who cross me. She has my back, and I know that.”

She always will, in all the experiences and moments that await in life. Just as Hannah will have her back. But for the next three months, and maybe just a little bit more if all goes well, they will also be side by side, showing an entire team the way forward.

“I think the relationship that we have is the reason that we’re even here because growing up we literally pushed each other until we couldn’t do any more,” Mary Beth said. “Knowing that this is probably going to be our last year together, and all of this has gone by so fast, I hope I always remember the connection we have.

“I’m grateful that we have each other because it’s just a blessing.”

For opponents? Not so much.