Kristin O'Neill, Gretchen Gilmore Never Gave Up on Penn State

Penn State went 0-6 in the Big Ten last season. The Nittany Lions already nixed that storyline in 2023 after beating Rutgers on March 11. But it was a win over another Garden State team this weekend, at Princeton, that catapulted Penn State into the Nike/USA Lacrosse Division I Women’s Top 20.

“We had some close losses [in 2022], but we had a lot of things in place from a camaraderie standpoint. Now those guys are a year older, which is even more powerful,” Penn State head coach Missy Doherty said. “I sort of knew it was coming.”

Penn State is 7-2 and riding a three-game winning streak, which it can extend Tuesday afternoon at Pitt.

The Nittany Lions may not be considered one of the game’s blue bloods. But they’ve had their share of success over the years. They last made the Final Four in 2016 and 2017.

Current juniors and leading scorers Kristin O’Neill and Gretchen Gilmore were high school underclassmen and Penn State commits during those Final Four seasons. That was before recruiting changed. They joined Olivia Dirks — now of North Carolina — who was the No. 3 incoming freshman a year earlier. They all became fast friends at the ages of 14 and 15, keeping in touch online and via text message and dreaming of continuing the tradition.

But things have since taken a turn. Penn State hasn’t finished a full season above .500 since 2017. The Nittany Lions started 5-2 in 2020 before the world shut down, meaning O’Neill and Gilmore missed their senior seasons in high school. When they finally got to the same campus in the Fall of 2020, there was little opportunity to build on the camaraderie they formed digitally.

“You had to be in pods,” said O’Neill, who enters Tuesday’s game with 99 career goals. “There weren’t as many opportunities to bond as a team. We didn’t have a fall ball. We didn’t have a lot of stuff to get us to the game like normal freshmen. It made that season off.” 

Doherty calls the 2021 season an anomaly — her hardest as a coach. But in the second game, another anomaly happened, one that gave the program a glimmer of hope. Penn State knocked off Maryland for the first time since 2005. O’Neill scored twice in that game. Gilmore got her first goal. The Nittany Lions wouldn’t play again for two-plus weeks — their games against Northwestern were canceled because of COVID-19. When they did make it to Evanston on March 11, much of the team couldn’t travel because of COVID protocols, and Penn State lost 24-13.

“There was a lot of unknown that season,” O’Neill said. “Are we even going to play that week? Things were never really comfortable for us. It taught me to be grateful for every time I got to step on the field and playing out of conference teams.”

Penn State did beat Maryland one more time but finished 4-9 and without an invite to the NCAA tournament.

“That was a hard pill to swallow,” Doherty said. “How many seasons do you beat Maryland twice and not make the NCAAs?”

Maria Auth, who led Penn State with 34 goals and 12 assists, graduated. Dirks would have been the leading returning scorer, having posted 32 goals, but the sophomore decided to transfer to North Carolina. It was a recurring theme that summer, though the typical transfer portal entrant was a fifth-year. (For her part, Doherty picked up attacker Taylor Regan from Virginia.)

But O’Neill and Gilmore never considered diving into college lacrosse’s version of free agency.

“The opportunity to build our program back up with our best friends sounded way better than transferring to a program that was already good, at least for us,” O’Neill said.

Gilmore agrees.

“We were able to see the future of this program and where it’s going to go,” she said. “I don’t think giving up was an option — leaving wasn’t an option. It gave Kristin and me the opportunity to look forward and see how we could propel the program.”

The immediate future wasn’t as bright as they had hoped. But the 6-9 overall record and winless Big Ten 2022 season don’t tell the whole story. Penn State wasn’t rolling over in every game. The Nittany Lions lost to Princeton, Ohio State and Michigan by one goal. The idea of flipping that script quickly became something to rally behind heading into 2023.

“Last year was definitely a frustrating year for us,” Gilmore said. “We learned from it, and it gave us experience in tight games. Those losses prepared us to come out on top this year.”

Toward the end of 2022, which Penn State ended on a three-game losing streak, Doherty made it clear: Things would get better — quickly.

“I told them, ‘You’ll feel the difference in the fall,’” Doherty said.

Doherty was right. After the summer, the Nittany Lions came back more assertive in practices, and it’s spilling over into games as the calendar officially hits spring. Gilmore exemplifies the shift. She scored 19 goals last season and already has 18 in 2023, including six goals in the Nittany Lions’ upset of Princeton.

“Maybe it was nerves, or maybe it was feeling like I couldn’t go to goal,” Gilmore said. “This year, I felt like I needed to step up … I’ve taken what I learned those past two years and bringing it in this year, tweaked the small things, played composed and shaken off those underclassmen nerves. I see the potential of this team.”

The potential was evident during a 4-0 start and even an 11-7 loss to a Top 20 Loyola team. Then, it happened again — Penn State lost by one to Vanderbilt on March 8. Here we go again? Not quite.

“You can learn a lot from losses if you handle and analyze them the right way,” O’Neill said. “We have to fight for 60 minutes even if the other team goes on a run. We have to not get quiet … and working together on offense when one thing isn’t working.”

The Nittany Lions made noise three days later. They led Rutgers, last year’s Big Ten tournament runner-up, 8-4 heading into the fourth quarter and held off a late push to secure the win. Against Towson on March 14, Penn State did, in fact, flip the script, winning by one — 13-12. Down 10-7 at the break to Princeton on Saturday, the Nittany Lions rallied, with Gilmore scoring the final two goals in the 16-14 win.

“Rutgers, Towson and Princeton have been good turning points,” Doherty said. “There are different things to learn every game. We’re at a point in our season where we’ve seen a lot, whether it’s zone defense or two-man.”

But it’s more than playbooks and stat sheets. There’s been a culture shift, a product of a now-veteran line-up.

 “We took some lumps last year against those teams with multiple fifth years,” Doherty said. “Now, we’re the older team playing some younger teams that just graduated some veteran leaders. I could even feel it in some of those games against Towson and Princeton — there wasn’t a panic in our offense, whereas you felt that before. That emotional stability from the older players a lot of times gets you those close wins.”

The win may have put Penn State into the rankings for the first time this season, but the Nittany Lions have tunnel vision.

“It’s really easy to get caught up in rankings and the polls and records,” Gilmore said. “But we need to continue to take each game one by one and focus on going 1-0.”

Doherty is of that mindset, too. But she’s not putting a cap on what this year’s team can accomplish. The Nittany Lions were at-large bids each time they made the Final Four.

“I think it’s limitless,” Doherty said. “I look at those Final Four years, and it’s not like we were undefeated those years. Keep chipping away, keep getting better, be your best at the right time — that’s what we need to do to finish the season. Where that takes us is yet to be determined, but I am certainly excited to just work with this group.”