ITHACA, N.Y. -- There's a row of tiny Delft houses on her shelf - blue-and-white KLM souvenirs her dad brought back from flights when the family lived in Amsterdam. For Cornell senior Georgia Kelly, they're more than trinkets.

They're coordinates.

Amsterdam. Miami. Amsterdam again. Dublin. Boarding school in the U.K. Then Ithaca.

Home, she's learned, is less an address than a heartbeat stretched across two islands and an ocean - and a team that meets most mornings on green turf.

"I grew up moving all over the place," Kelly said. "But I guess you know the old adage - home is where the heart is - I think that's something I've really come to identify with, between Ireland and the U.K. with my family and school friends, and now here.

The path to Cornell field hockey began in the Netherlands, the cradle of the sport, where a reluctant nine-year-old was nudged lovingly by her mom, a former player, to give it a try.

"I complained the first few sessions," she said. "Then I fell in love with it."

Club ladders turned quickly - D team to A team - and soon she was in Irish age-group colors, the anthem and the green jersey tucked among the memories no one can take away.

The road to Cornell was not as linear as one of her clearing hits. Kelly skipped a year of high school, was recruited through COVID, and endured surgeries — including an ACL tear that cut short U18 national-team hopes — before finding her footing again in Ithaca.

"I remember the day I got cleared," she said. "Vindication for a lot of people's work."

Her presence on the field paid immediate dividends. In 2023 she anchored a defense that ranked second in the Ivy League and 15th nationally in scoring defense (1.22 goals allowed) and posted five shutouts. Cornell set a school record for wins (12-5) and reached the first-ever Ivy League Tournament, where she earned all-tournament honors. She played 17 games with 14 starts.

Junior year, she started all 16, led all field players in minutes (862), and added two goals and four assists while taking on a bigger role on penalty corners. Now a senior, Kelly has the Big Red back in the hunt for a coveted Ivy League Tournament bid.

The moments that glow aren't only the dramatic ones - though the double-OT win over Syracuse in 2023 still resonates. They're the ordinary ones forged in friendship: housemates at practice, problem sets after lift, late runs to Target when her mom visits.

At Cornell, the defender's compass points backward and forward at once: see danger early, play simple, settle the people around you. Listed at 5-4 from Dublin by way of Repton School, she is the product of both systems - Irish edge, English polish, Ivy ambition.

Ambition is a family language. Her mother paused her legal career to raise three children across continents. Her father traveled often as a CEO and left a nightly mantra: work hard, never give up, always tell the truth. Georgia memorized it young. She still lives by it.

An economics major with time in Cornell finance clubs and a semester abroad at the University of Edinburgh, Kelly is, by nature and by nurture, honest but fair. Say the hard thing when it helps, own mistakes when you must, and keep standards high because the jersey demands it. That began with a mother's nudge and a father's mantra. It continues now - one press, one interception, one tackle, one simple outlet at a time.

When she packs for whatever's next - Wall Street, London, Dublin - the Delft houses will go with her. So will the people who made Cornell field hockey feel like home.

The map changes. The coordinates don't.