Katelyn O'Brien was hired in May of 2010 and completed her ninth season with the Quakers in 2018 as an assistant coach for Penn’s head coach, Colleen Fink, before being promoted to Associate Head Coach in January of 2019. Working with the offensive unit, O'Brien has turned Penn into a juggernaut. She completed her 13th season overall with the Quakers in 2022.
Penn has been above .500 in seven seasons, including two seasons with 13 wins, a feat previously accomplished just twice in the first 40 years of the program's history as a varsity program (1973-2012). In both 2013 and 2015, the Quakers entered their final regular-season game at Ellen Vagelos Field playing for a share of the Ivy League title and the league's NCAA Championship automatic bid. Penn has a 102-100 overall record and is 45-39 in Ivy League play since O'Brien has been on the staff.
Penn did not have a first-team All-Ivy player from 2008-12; in the last eight seasons, the Quakers have had 10. After placing just one woman on the All-Ivy teams in Fink's first season (2010) and two in her second season (2011), Penn has had four women receive All-Ivy recognition in six of the last eight seasons. In addition, Penn had the Ivy League Rookie of the Year in 2013 (Jasmine Cole) and 2014 (Alexa Hoover), and in both cases they were named first-team All-Ivy as freshmen, the first two times that happened in program history.
Hoover earned NFHCA All-America as both a sophomore and junior, becoming the program's first All-America since 2003, just its third since 1989, and just the third player in Penn history to be a multi All-America selection. At the NFHCA All-Region level, Penn had no players recognized from 2008-12 but has had 14 in the last eight seasons including seven first-team selections. Hoover also became the program's first four-time First Team All-Ivy selection and just the fourth in Ivy League history. In 2019, Alexa Schneck joined Hoover as one of three Penn players to receive an All-Ivy nod in each of their four years with the program.
Hoover, Schneck, Elise Tilton, Elizabeth Hitti, and Emily Corcoran each participated in the NFHCA Senior All-Star Game during the NCAA's championship weekend from 2014-19, prior to that stretch, Penn had not been represented at the event since 2004.
O'Brien made the move to Penn with Fink from Haverford College. During her four-year stint at Haverford, O'Brien's main focus was with the offensive unit where she led individuals and the team to break program scoring, assist, and point records, while also improving their overall statistics to the top three in the conference in every offensive category. In 2009, O'Brien helped lead the program to its first ever Centennial Conference playoff appearance and first playoff victory in program history.
O'Brien has experience running and working a number of field hockey camps, including Suburban Elite Field Hockey Camp at Haverford, as well as working event management for College Quest, a tournament for high school players to showcase their ability in front of college coaches.
A Havertown native, O'Brien played her college field hockey at Saint Joseph's, where she closed out her career fifth in program history with 28 goals and 66 points scored. She was a three-time All-Philadelphia honoree and All-Atlantic 10 first-team member. As a senior, O'Brien was named to the National Field Hockey Coaches Association's All-Mid-Atlantic Region first-team, Atlantic 10 All-Championship Team, and was chosen to compete in the NFHCA North-South Senior All-Star Game. She graduated from Saint Joseph's in 2006 with a bachelor's degree in business marketing.
She is married to Brian Borden with two children, Van and Baker.
